Project Proposals

For this Documentary Photo class most of the semester is going to be spent working on one long project. Here are two distinct proposals detailing how I may go about accomplishing this project.

Proposal One: New Climbs in the Old Pueblo

This project would involve interviews with and portraits of the most active of Tucson's rock climbers, meaning those who are either repeating hard older climbs or are establishing new routes and boulder problems. I would select around five climbers who are pushing the limits on rock around Tucson, interview them about their current projects, and photograph and record video of their attempts. Since some of the climbs are unclimbed and/or newly developed lines, while others are routes first climbed in the 1960's, there will be quite a bit of interesting back-story to every one of them.

While I'm hoping to create a multi-media presentation including audio and video of the interviews along side still photos and video of the climbs themselves, I also hope to create diptychs to represent each climber comprised of a portrait of them and an action shot of the climb they are working on completing.

I have photos already of some of some of these climbs and their climbers from previous sessions taken this last year, and some video as well. The series of portraits would be an entirely new endeavor and require the most work I think.

As far as gaining access for the interviews of each climber, I have the great opportunity of working at the rock climbing gym here in town as well as being a tucson climber for the last two or three years. Some of the climbers I know very well, some of them I climb with on the weekends. Others however, mostly the ones who never climb in the gym, I have never even spoken to and it will require some prying and pleading to be invited to accompany them on their climbing trips; and that is my greatest concern with this project. Cost for this project, aside from printing it, should be negligible.

I hope to get pictures videos and interviews about the following climbs

-Jewell Thief - Climbers: Ryan Theodore, Aaron Mike, Ian Evans

-No Climb for Old Men or Righteous Beast - Climber: Joe Kreidel

-Jailbreak - Climber: Joe Shiefman

-SLR - Climber: Clay Mansfield

-Any old project by - Climber: Eric Richard

Proposal Two: A Series of Tucson Ride-Alongs

This project would be an expose of the work involved in policing the streets of Tucson. I would shoot both stills and video for this multimedia project, and record extensive audio using my iPhone or tape recorder. I would accompany at least two different officers during different shifts and in different parts of the city, one in the southeast and one in central Tucson.

It's difficult to say how this project would turn out, as I have absolutely no idea what crimes would be encountered on each ride-along. And because in the case that a crime would require an investigation my photographs and other materials would be seized by law as evidence. In these cases I simply would not capture any media.

Obviously gaining permission to take a camera with my on a ride-along, and to do so multiple times will require some effort. Also, each ride-along would require 8 hours of my time, which may mean only four days of shooting throughout the semester, and thats assuming I'd be allowed to go on multiple.

The only research I have done into this project so far has been done at my work, Rocks and Ropes. A TPD officer named Nick and his wife have been climbing regularly there, affording me many a story and several invitations to join him on a ride-along. I have asked him about this project before and he seems to be excited about the idea, he also said he would get me in contact with some other officers who might be willing to escort me and my camera around the streets of Tucson.