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A so-called "alternative logging operation" in 1991 at Tofino Creek, Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island. The image ended up being a poster for Greenpeace's campaign to end clearcutting. ©Garth Lenz

Some photographers who approach ENGOs are already established. Since I started working with ENGOs very early on, now when I approach an ENGO I have not worked with previously, I almost always know someone there and they are already aware of my work. So how did I start working with ENGOs before I was an established photographer? Local groups in my hometown of Victoria were working to protect the Carmanah Valley, one of the last large and intact watersheds of old growth coastal temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island and home to the recently discovered tallest trees in Canada. It was all scheduled to be clear-cut in the very near future. At the time, I was still teaching piano to support myself, but photography and environmental issues were exerting an ever stronger pull. I had recently visited the area and was equally impressed by the devastating clearcuts, majestic forests, and the committed individuals I met there who were building trails to help the public access the area and learn what was at stake.

An image of the Carmanah Valley on Vancouver Island, from Garth's first feature assignment. The area was slated to be clearcut but later protected after a lengthy protest. ©Garth Lenz

I spent a few days in the area hiking and photographing, and upon my return to Victoria, I introduced myself to the local chapter of the Sierra Club and showed them my work. Shortly thereafter, Canada’s weekly news magazine, Maclean’s, decided the issue warranted national attention, they contacted the Sierra Club who referred them to me and I had my first published photo. Not long after that, our national newspaper the Globe and Mail decided to cover the story. The Sierra Club recommended me and I had my fist assignment, shooting aerials, which I’d never done before.

How you approach work with an ENGO or any other NGO will depend on how established you are and what subjects and areas you have in your photographic inventory. For someone in the early stages of their career, I think it is best to start locally. Is there an issue you care about that a local NGO is trying to promote? Do you already have images depicting this issue? If the answer to both these questions is yes, then you have an excellent foundation to begin building a relationship on. How you approach this will depend on how established you are and what subjects and areas you have in your photographic inventory. Of course, there are also other ways to make an initial connection.

1. Offer to give a lunch hour presentation of your work to staff. Or you might ask a local group to host a public presentation on an area you have visited and feel strongly about, perhaps splitting any proceeds from the event with them. Most NGO’s have a good base of supporters and may be able to assist in getting a larger audience than you would on your own.
2. Consider donating a print for one of their fundraisers.
3. See if you can organize a photo workshop through the NGO. Ask the NGO to organize it and perhaps for every paying customer they bring in they can have a free spot for a staff member.

Basically, you want the NGO to get to know you. They need to know that you care about the issues as much as they do. Thinking that you will walk through the door and come away with a paying assignment after your initial meeting is, in most cases, just not realistic. Okay, maybe that happens for some of the photo-gods and with very large NGO’s but for most of us mortals, being sent on a paying assignment by and NGO is something that only comes later.

Chris's favorite shots are the result of careful planning, like knowing exactly where to stand to capture this dye release into a glacial river. Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI

My first Arctic expedition was also my first foray into digital photography. This was 2002. The D1, with a whopping 2.74 megapixels, was Nikon’s flagship camera and lower priced bodies like the D100 had not yet hit the market. But the premise of our project was that we would be updating a website daily with images and text, so Woods Hole sent me out with a 5-megapixel Nikon point-and-shoot as a supplement to my film SLR gear. I had never used a digital camera before and had only rudimentary experience with Photoshop. The learning curve was steep. I practiced with the camera before the trip but there were huge limitations compared to using an SLR system: the zoom lens had a small range of focal lengths, creative control of aperture and shutter speeds was limited, and, perhaps worst of all, the camera responded very slowly (both in terms of shutter lag and frame rate).

Yet, shooting with that first digital camera opened my eyes to the power of digital. I could see my results immediately — I knew when I had the shot or didn’t. Using a small point-and-shoot with a tilting LCD also allowed me to get some really candid shots that would not have been possible with a huge DSLR. The following year, I upgraded to a D100 and said goodbye to film.

Doing his research allows Chris to anticipate where to stand not only to get the shot, but also not be crushed by equipment or swept overboard. ©Chris Linder/WHOI

A more important lesson I learned (and continue to learn) was how to photograph scientists. This may be patently obvious, but scientists do not have training as models. A surefire way to destroy a really intense moment, like a group of researchers discussing a recent result, is to wave a huge SLR in front of their faces. More than anything, I learned how to get the shots I needed while at the same time preserving the scientists’ respect and trust. Remaining unobtrusive is key. I always keep in mind that the fieldwork I am photographing is the result of years of hard work to get funding and prepare for an expedition. Time is a precious resource when you’re in the field, so I make it a point to never interrupt their work to stage a scene.

Everything I shoot is completely natural and unscripted and sometimes quite raw. Which isn’t to say that I wander about aimlessly hoping for lucky shots. I apply the same patience I learned from the grant writing process to carefully researching my subjects. This means I know what is going to happen (like when and where an instrument will be brought on deck) and will wait for the players and light to come together, sometimes for hours. I usually spend this observation phase with the camera ready but down, out of sight. As the hours and days go by, I eventually fade into the background, and voila, I’m invisible. Of course, it’s also essential to do your share carrying boxes, washing bottles, making dinner, or otherwise showing that you’re part of the team and not afraid to get your hands dirty doing real work. When you’ve earned the respect of the team—when you become a member of team—it’s a lot easier to get the shot.

Wetlands in Alberta, Canada. ©Garth Lenz

One constant during the course of my career has been a close association with environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs). As an environmental photojournalist, motivated by a deep concern for the environment and the need to protect intact wilderness, working closely with committed activists and knowing that my images will play a significant role in their efforts has been one of the most rewarding and inspiring aspects of my work. I believe this has been a mutually beneficial relationship. My images have helped to shape public opinion and provided organizations with the material they need to advocate in a visually compelling way. In many situations, ENGOs have very graciously credited my work as being instrumental to their successes. In turn, the knowledge and contacts provided by ENGOs has greatly assisted in my understanding of these issues and has provided critical knowledge of various locales as well as the logistical support so important to successful fieldwork.

On occasion, groups have also directly commissioned me to produce imagery, and I have also raised money independently to undertake projects in order to furnish ENGOs with the images they need. Many of my most interesting and long-term projects have been possible only as a direct result of my longstanding relationship with these groups.

I have also given a number of visual presentations and tours in order to build support for some of the issues I have photographed and feel particularly strongly about. This has provided me with the opportunity to directly share my images with a large cross-section of people. Their feedback and response has helped me better understand the power of certain kinds of images, and that has been a great asset in my field work.

While my work with NGOs has mostly been with ENGOs, I think that any photographer whose work is devoted to promoting positive change, whether in environmental, humanitarian, or other issues would greatly benefit from a close relationship with NGOs dedicated to furthering these same goals.

On the job at Cape Crozier, Antarctica. Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI

When I wrote the “Live from the Poles” proposal with the WHOI Director of Communications, this was our justification and plan for the embedded media team:

“Insightful writing and compelling images are the heart of every successful publication. The core of this project is support for a professional science writer and field photographer to join each expedition. Scientists are frequently working around the clock when in the field, and have little time to describe their fieldwork with written dispatches and photography. They also cannot be expected to have the training required to produce professional photographs and video clips. To ensure that the groundbreaking research conducted during this historical period [International Polar Year] is properly documented, support for the writer/photographer team is critical to this proposal. The team will be responsible for filing daily dispatches including science updates, logistical challenges, team member profiles, and life at sea (or on the ice). The team will also coordinate real-time phone patches from PIs [Principal Investigators] in the field to museum audiences, National Public Radio stations, Scholastic magazine, and manage student Q&As with scientists. An experienced shore-based team at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will manage Web updates from the field, and prepare publication of photo essays and articles in Oceanus magazine, which receives 30,000 visits online each month.”

To summarize, we were cognizant of the lack of quality photographs coming out of scientific expeditions and saw an opportunity to assemble a professional team to tell visual stories from the field. The trick was to do it daily from some of the most remote places in the world.

So why photograph science fieldwork? There has never been a more important time to understand how our planet works. Glaciers and Arctic pack ice are shrinking at an unprecedented rate. Rising temperatures are causing profound shifts in ecosystems. In the October issue of Scientific American, John Holdren, a Harvard physicist and President-elect Obama’s White House science adviser, wrote that “the ongoing disruption of the earth’s climate by man-made greenhouse gases is already well beyond dangerous and is careening toward completely unmanageable.” According to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, a consensus of the world’s scientific experts, we (human beings) are causing unprecedented changes to our climate.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a doom and gloom kind of guy. Despite the challenges that rising global temperatures will present in the coming years, I believe in human ingenuity and resilience. And scientists are out there in some of the harshest places on our planet, like the Greenland Ice Sheet and Antarctica, collecting data on past and present changes so we can better predict future conditions.

I’m an idealist; I see science as a noble, selfless profession. By photographing scientists in the field, I am hoping to communicate a deeper understanding and respect for the scientific process and profession, and to urge people to use scientific knowledge of the world to help sustain it.