On July 20, 1969 at 9:32 in the morning, people across America were looking at television footage of the Apollo 11 astronauts walking on the moon. While that was going on, British photographer Mark Edwards was lost while on assignment in the Sahara Desert. Edwards was very lucky to be rescued by a Tuareg nomad, who took him back to the nomad’s camp, brought out a cassette player from his hut and played a song by Bob Dylan — “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall.”
British photographer Mark Edwards
Photos from his new book “Hard Rain” are on display at St. Thomas currently,
photos which connect images of environmental change and damage to the earth
with Bob Dylan’s song, “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall.”
While listening to the Dylan song, Edwards imagined connecting the lyrics and his own photographs of environmental damage to the earth. “I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest…,’’ Dylan sang. “Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten.”
By 2006 Edwards had Dylan’s permission to use the words and he published “Hard Rain,” a book that combines Dylan’s lyrics with moving photos by Edwards and other photographers showing the suffering earth — melting glaciers, mountains stripped of trees and dozens of other powerful images.
Now Edwards is traveling around the world urging audiences to translate their emotional response to the photos into political and personal actions. Information about his project is available at here.
On Oct. 20, he was over at the University of St. Thomas, displaying the photographs and urging college students to act. In an interview, Edwards described what young people can do to reduce global warming and poverty in third-world countries.
First of all, they must change to a more environmentally friendly way of life, he said, and reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases that warm the atmosphere. “We have to ask ourselves in the rich part of the world- how can we live better with less,” he said, urging people to start by using florescent bulbs, turning down the heat and wearing sweaters, biking more and driving less.
Second, put pressure on government to change energy and environmental policies, Edwards said. “You have to put huge pressure on politicians in favor of the future…They can’t act in a democracy unless they have a constituency to support them. These things are going to cost money,” he said.
Edwards himself mailed a copy of his book to prime ministers, presidents, business and religious leaders. His photos were displayed at the United Nations headquarters in New York last spring.
Third, young people can help third-world countries improve their lives and environment. Better health care, especially for children, more education and improved human rights, especially for women, would help reduce overpopulation, ease the strain on natural resources and improve people’s lives, he said. “When women are educated and when they have the opportunity to get work you see the family size go down,” Edwards said.
Improving children’s health care means that more children will live to adulthood, and parents won’t believe they need many children to ensure the parents are cared for in their old age.
Why take photos? “Photographs are a shadow of the past — always. But they can also be a ghost of the future,” Edwards said.
The book’s photos are on display in the main quad at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul until Nov. 14. They’ll be on the skyway level of the business school on the Minneapolis campus from Nov. 24 to Dec. 19.
Dymanh Chhoun is a student at Normandale Community College and an intern with ThreeSixty.
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