Art and Activism with Amy Martin

“It makes me want to work harder to protect it, just seeing both how alternatively resilient and fragile it is. I think the more I am connected, the more I want to work towards helping preserve it.”

How do you protect the places you care about? In this episode, Amy Martin explores how photography became her medium for telling stories and helping to protect the places she loves. See her work at amysmartinphotography.com.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Hannah: It was one of my chaotic questions too. Amy: Oh yeah right, So wait what was the question so I can think about it for one second? Hannah: Yeah. Hannah: Welcome back to another fun conversation with Amy Martin. I'm Ranger Hannah, and if you haven't listened to the episode where Amy and I discuss her personal connection to the Canyon, I highly suggest you give that a listen, then listen to this. In this episode, Amy and I talked about her photography activism in the work she's done with Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. And at the time of recording this episode, it was not yet a national monument and became one, just about a week after recording this. So let's jump into the episode and learn more about Amy Martin's photography activism. Hannah: So I’m sitting here with Amy Martin and so excited because I love her work and I first learned about her last year when she talked here at Grand Canyon. And her work is specifically in photography. And I'm curious what drew you to photography? Amy: A few things I think did. I always was a very visual person growing up, and I thought everyone was, you know, as we do. When we’re you we think everyone thinks the same way we do. And so I would just stare at scenes and, you know, take in detail, and look at the light, and stare at people. laughter But so I did a lot of different visual art growing up, but my mom was an amateur photographer, and so she documented our life growing up. And I kind of took, you know, after her, I inherited her a little camera. Hannah: Yes! Amy: And just with my kind of fast paced life drawing kind of went to drawing and painting, went to the side. And it was amazing that there was this device that we were able to capture a moment of time in, you know, a millisecond. So yeah, that's really what started what drew me to photography. Hannah: I love it. So, when you got drawn into photography from when you initially started and the different projects you've worked at, how has your photography style changed? Amy: I feel like, that is a very good question, I feel like for the different projects that I do, my photography style changes kind of to meet the story. To either, I work a lot with different organizations, both environmental and social organizations, and so I feel like this style of photography, I try to kind of match what story these organizations want or the mood. Yeah. Over time, it's definitely got, I've gotten a lot more into documentary style photography. Hannah: So when taking a photo, what is the goal? Are you trying to tell a story? Catch a glimpse of many moments, or is there something else? Amy: Yeah, I think with the goals really, it's kind of twofold. And one is to really be true to this story. I think there's a lot of ethics involved in, you know, in good photography. And so I really try to be true to the story that's being told. And the second is I'm really trying to make a really compelling photo and compelling photos I think can have so much power. You know, for the good or the worse, but hopefully for the good. So, with these photos, we can you know, now we can share on so many different types of platforms and it far reaches, you know, to the end of the world. But if we take Grand Canyon as an example, if we have a really compelling photo of Grand Canyon that can create a connection for somebody, somebody who maybe has never even been to Grand Canyon, you know, and they can experience that beauty. And for me, if they can experience that, they have that connection. And then, you know, because I do so much advocacy work, then they can potentially become advocates, even if they have never walked the edge of Grand Canyon or seen it, you know, in person. They can they can connect with it. Hannah: Yeah Amy: I think that really is my goal. Hannah: So with connections, would you say that's how your work initially started as you were trying to form connections? Or when do you think you finally made the realization that you were helping connect people? Amy: Yeah, I think when the photographs are used in advocacy work, and that's what I do a lot with both social organizations and with environmental organizations, is, you know, if they are used for, you know, advocacy work, fundraising and volunteer recruitment, all of these different things, when those are successful, like I know that those photographs have connected with other people with a greater audience then could connect with them without, you know, a...