{"id":32769,"date":"2017-04-03T09:48:30","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T13:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=32769"},"modified":"2017-04-03T11:36:34","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T15:36:34","slug":"second-emu-student-wins-prestigious-conservation-photography-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/second-emu-student-wins-prestigious-conservation-photography-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"Second EMU student wins prestigious conservation photography scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Macson McGuigan, a senior environmental sustainability<\/a> and digital media<\/a> major at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), was recently named one of 12 North American Nature Photography Association<\/a> (NANPA) College Scholars. He is the second EMU student to win the scholarship.<\/p>\n

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Macson McGuigan (left) works with fellow scholar Aaron Pomerantz, of UC Berkeley, on composing a photo. (Photo by Marc A. Larson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The prestigious award enabled McGuigan to attend NANPA\u2019s biannual summit<\/a> in Jacksonville, Florida, from Feb 26-March 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an opportunity of a lifetime,\u201d says Professor Steven David Johnson<\/a>, who teaches conservation photography<\/a> and encouraged McGuigan to apply. \u201cMany former scholars who have received this scholarship are now widely recognized in the nature\/conservation photography world as explorers, filmmakers and leaders. NANPA\u2019s president, Clay Bolt, has called this opportunity a \u2018career-maker.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson’s course is one of two in the United States highlighted by The International League of Conservation Photographers<\/a>; the other is taught at Stanford University.<\/p>\n

In addition to summit registration and admission, McGuigan’s scholarship paid for room and board, three years of association membership, a professional portfolio review, and special opportunities to network with mentors.<\/p>\n

But the most unique feature of the award is the opportunity to participate in a \u201cfield-based storytelling project\u201d for an area client. Because the summit moves to different locations every other year, clients bring scholarship participants and the professionals who help into many locales.<\/p>\n

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Scholars and instructors gather around a computer to examine images at the NANPA Summit. McGuigan is second from right, bottom row. (Photo by Marc A. Larson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McGuigan joined other scholarship winners and a crew of professionals, among them a National Geographic Society Young Explorer and a doctoral researcher in evolutionary biology, <\/em>to produce a film for the non-profit North Florida Land Trust. The six-minute film, posted below, features the organization’s \u201cO2O\u201d campaign to connect the Ocala and Osceola National Forests with a wilderness corridor of undeveloped land.<\/p>\n

The group spent three days filming \u201cfrom sun-up to sun-down\u201d in both national forests, on the Camp Blanding military reservation and with private landowners within the proposed corridor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to three springs, which are really valuable for clean drinking water in Florida,\u201d says McGuigan. \u201cWe also saw longleaf pine ecosystems, sandpine scrub, flatwoods, sandhill, swamps, wet prairies \u2013 a bunch of really beautiful, unique ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team shot footage of endemic scrub jays, spotted turtles and various snakes and lizards. McGuigan was one of two photographers who worked together for 45 minutes to capture \u201caround five seconds of usable footage\u201d of the red-cockaded woodpecker. He says the team was \u201cdramatically spoiled\u201d by the half a million dollars of state-of-the-art equipment donated by Canon.<\/p>\n

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Macson McGuigan uses one of EMU\u2019s 4K video cameras to record the view from Reddish Knob for his senior project. (Photo by Steven David Johnson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite only three to four hours of sleep each night as they edited and compiled their work, he called the experience \u201cthe greatest week ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a screening at the conference, the film will be used in the North Florida Land Trust\u2019s campaign to advocate land easements to private landowners in the proposed corridor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a wonderful opportunity to build a portfolio and do this kind of work. The conference was great because we got to meet with photographers who are icons in the conservation photography industry,\u201d says McGuigan.<\/p>\n

McGuigan returns from the experience in Florida invigorated for an ongoing project that is serving as his senior practicum and senior art show for his two majors: an advocacy video for Friends of Shenandoah Mountain<\/a>\u2019s National Scenic Area proposal.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll be shooting in the field as well as interviewing landowners, organizers, and naturalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the work I want to do in my future,\u201d he said. \u201cI would call it digital storytelling, with a focus in environmental issues.\u201d<\/p>\n