Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
A Year of the Susquehanna River
This project is partially funded by the Puffin Foundation, Ltd. We visually documented a portion of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania over the course of a year. River sections included the confluence of the West Branch and the main stem at Sunbury down to the south where the river confluences with the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Two photographic portfolios - one in the documentary vein and one that is fine art. A short will be available for viewing in the future.
Project Description
The Susquehanna River — with a flow rate of 20 billion gallons per day just in its lower region is considered one of the biggest non-navigable and one of the most flood prone rivers in the US. The Susquehanna River originates in Cooperstown, NY, bisects Pennsylvania, and flows out into the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. With no commercial traffic, people living along the Susquehanna have a unique relationship with the river, using it for recreation, food, and life. However, they also are subject to the challenges of the river – flooding, drought, and pollution. One of One Water, One Story’s missions is to tell the story of water and humanity from the water’s perspective, in this project, the Lower Susquehanna River.
Our project concentrates on the main stem in the southcentral part of Pennsylvania down to where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. After initial scouting, we chose seven sites to monitor the river over the course of a year, following the seasons and any abnormal weather conditions. Photography began August 2021 and ended September 2022. The chosen sites were based on accessibility, river geomorphological characteristics, and the potential of showing environmental and anthropologic factors which could affect the river.
With partial funding from The Puffin Foundation grant, the project created two photographic series with a short video in the works to visually show the various river- land-human interfaces along the length of the Lower Susquehanna such as gorges, river banks, floodplains, recreation, and many others – as well as the detritus of human existence impacting the river surface (flood debris, algal blooms, floating trash, etc.). The project also would document floods and/or droughts due to a changing climate, if they occur that year.
Both photographic series and the short video selected 4 – 5 locations along the Susquehanna River and documented the river throughout the seasons, focusing on the river primarily and the humans and the riverbanks secondary. The series highlights implemented solutions to mitigate many environmental issues affecting both the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay (sediment and nutrient runoff and deposition, stormwater and industrial runoff, dams, increased algal blooms leading to decreased oxygen levels in the water, river bank erosion, etc.) as well as what is missing or could be done.
The first photographic series was photographed in the traditional documentary vein. The second series was created with a more artistic and fine art intention using camera filters and/or digital manipulation.
The goals of this project are to not only visually show the environmental problems or solutions in use that affect both the health of a watershed, its inhabitants, and organisms that use them, including humans, but also to open the viewers’ minds to the environment around them through art, in this particular case, photography and film, and restore their link to water. We present a different perspective that is uncommon in the documentation of this river. It is a metaphor to show that things aren’t what is seen – that there are hidden worlds within the river.
