Amsterdam Burlesque Photography

I recently had the opportunity to photograph Amsterdam burlesque talent Miss Lola L’amour. Miss L’amour will be auditioning for the Amsterdam Burlesque Festival (read more or get tickets).

Burlesque is a resurgent art-form, a passionate celebration of the female form from the 20’s and 30’s. The festival promises to be very entertaining (and sexy). I think that we created some beautiful images and she is a shoe-in for the Festival, what do you think?

Climate Faces – Photography Exhibit at the United Nations

greenland panoramic mountains

Exhibition Panel 1 - United Nations

UPDATED IMAGE BELOW

Tomorrow, July 14, the exhibit, Climate Faces – Changing Earth, Changing Lives opens at the United Nations in New York. Featured are my photographs from the 2008 Cape Farewell Voyage.

This exhibit documents young climate activists exploring the impacts of climate change on the Arctic and how they learned to communicate the issue. It follows on the heels of successful showings in locations around the world, including; Trafalgar Square, Parliament Hill Ottawa, India and Mexico.

The exhibit runs until the end of July. If you can’t make it to New York, click here to see some of the images on display.

More about this British Council project.
In September 2008, 28 high school students from Canada, Brazil, Germany, India, Ireland, Mexico and the United Kingdom boarded a Russian research vessel in Reykjavik, Iceland, and sailed around the southern tip of Greenland to Iqaluit on Canada‘s Baffin Island. On the trip, they were accompanied by scientists, artists and educators, who engaged them in a variety of programmes on board the ship and on shore.

Update: A picture of the opening banner at the UN: Provided by Esperanza Garcia

opening at the UN imagea

Green Jobs Photo Censored by the Senate

Recently this image was prohibited from appearing within the Senate Rotunda in Washington, D.C. This image was meant to accompany the National Wildlife Federation Fair Climate Photo Exhibit in Russell Senate Building Rotunda that finished on July 2nd. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the Senate decided that Freedom of Speech was not a right to be upheld within its’ walls and would not allow this image to hang. Also suffering at the hands of the censorship committee was this image by Project Survival Media Coordinator Shadia Fayne Wood.

I guess the Senate felt that there were too many people demanding green jobs and a switch to a clean low carbon future.  Devastating, because we  know that such a switch is necessary to guarantee our survival.

Images Published in National Geographic Traveler

Kids jumping off the wharf in Oman

My first travel photographs in National Geographic Traveler have been published! The June edition of the Netherlands travel magazine includes not one, but two articles illustrated with my images. One article visually highlights the wonderful diversity in Oman, where ancient cultures are clashing with modern, oil driven world. The other is a photo essay about the Salzkammergut region in Austrian Alps. To preview the articles, click here.

To celebrate, I am offering a 30% discount on prints on any of the 25 images that appear in the magazine if you use the coupon code ‘natgeocelebration’.

Go HERE to browse the images

Remember, use coupon code: natgeocelebration on checkout!

And don’t forget to share this with a friend so they can benefit from this offer as well.

Offer expires on June 30, 2010

Arizona Travel Stock Images

The incredible photographic landscape of Arizona was the subject of my lens in May, 2010. This slideshow of my best Arizona photographs includes stock images of the locations of Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Route 66, Tonto Bridge State Park and Petrified Forest National Park. To license, click an image or here.


Arizona – Stock Photography – Images by Robert vanWaarden

Activism, Coal and Arizona

“Just seeing the future for us and knowing that they [our parents] wanted a better future for us, fern benallyI have the same feeling for, not myself, but the kids and for my relatives and that something better will be in the future for them, that keeps me going. Knowing that we have succeeded in one step and maybe we can continue on and see a better future for all of us.

[One of] the other things that keeps me going is knowing that one of my great aunts and my great uncles [had] respiratory problems. Their breath was taken away slowly inch by inch, feeling like they were being suffocated. When they died, thinking about them and thinking that how much better it would be for the rest of the people here. I don’t want them to die that way anymore, I want them to be able to breathe.” Fern Benally, Navajo Activist.

Shadia Fayne Wood from Project Survival Media and I just finished an assignment in Arizona, covering an incredible group of activists that are working hard to stop dirty energy on the Navajo Reservation and pushing the envelope on clean energy development. We are focusing on the closing of one of the coal mines in the area, the tactics that were used and what this means to the people affected by the closure.

The former coalmine is in the Benally’s backyard, land that has been the families for thousands of years. For the last 30 years, 24 hours a day, the large coal trucks would rumble by the house and the coal crusher would drown out nature. Now, thanks to incredible co-operation and dedication amongst groups like the Black Mesa Water Coalition, Grand Canyon Trust and the Sierra Club, the life of mine permit was revoked in January. Now, the Benally’s can hear the birds sing and watch the stars like their ancestors did long before Europeans came here.

There are still many examples of environmental racism here in Arizona and across our planet. But, it is important to celebrate victories and share the knowledge so that we can all move towards a sustainable future. More to come on this project in the future.

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Two photographs of Monument Valley, which is the best?

I want your opinion!

I was recently in Monument Valley in Arizona and I created these two drastically different images of the landscape with the mittens. Photographed only 50m apart, these two images raise several questions about composition, viewer opinion and human impact on our environment. I want to know which image you prefer. Image #1: The Cedar Log and Mittens or Image #2: The Parking Lot.

Which one do you prefer and why? Leave your comment below.

Cameras, lens, audio recorders packed: Gone in search of light….

Just as the sun was starting to warm up the cold, wet polder of the Netherlands, I figured that it was time to pack the gear and head off to the dry Southwest. One of my favourite places on earth, the landscapes of Utah, Nevada, California and region have inspired artists and photographers for decades. The colours of the red canyons, the arches, the beautiful sand dunes of Death Valley, it is a photographers dream.

This time I will spend most of my time in Arizona where I hear they have wonderful canyons and colourful deserts. Perhaps I can find some? But the chief reason behind this voyage still goes back to climate change. I plan on working with some of the native Americans of Arizona with Shadia Fayne from Project Survival Media to discover and document how modern day energy needs shape their future and past.

Check back for more, it will be an interesting adventure, (although, wifi isn’t emitted by Saguaro cactus so it won’t be everyday).

Project Survival Media launches Solutions for Survival

Planet not profit image Copenhagen COP 15A unique and important media project, Project Survival Media, has just launched their newest plan, Solutions for Survival (S4S). This new program, is about challenging the industry-sponsored myth that we just can’t meet our energy needs without investing in dirty energy. S4S will do this by creating a documentary series in the United States on current clean energy potential and current dirty energy subsidies

How can you help?

  • You can support PSM, all donations go to supporting young journalists to gain experience and focus on the most important issue today.
  • Join the Facebook group
  • Come to the Launch Party in San Fransisco on May 20th.

My experience with PSM….

I got involved with PSM back in 2009 as the European Team leader. The initial project for PSM was to set up a team of youth journalists around the world to focus on climate change reporting. Within a short time span of a few weeks, PSM had engaged over 100 youth journalists around the world, raised over $40,000 and produced an incredible array of reporting around the climate issue leading up to COP 15. PSM also financed several southern youth representatives to join the team in Copenhagen and report on the summit. It was a wide success and I am excited about working with PSM throughout the foreseeable future to continue to focus on climate change reporting.

To that end, I will be heading to Arizona in a couple of weeks to focus on indigenous energy projects with PSM director Shadia Fayne.  Stay tuned for more.