My parents have been succeeding admirably in contributing to global warming; I have tried innumerous times to change their minds, but all my efforts have proved in vain. The good news is: I have finally found a way to make them greener. It has been taking a lot of effort…from me, and only me, but it seems to be working. I have trying to talk them into it for so long; I have tried to start conversations on the subject, showed them a few pictures, some videos , but the only things these “acts of persuasion” got me was my mom to be horrified for about five minutes, and my father to run away. But I started to notice that if I changed things around the house on my own, they didn’t seem to mind. It started with flicking off the lights when they leave the room, and unplugging appliances. They thought it was a bit weird to unplug the TV, cable, and DVD player at first, but they have finally gotten used to it. I have started to change the light bulbs to fluorescent ones; switched their paper and plastic dishes to glass ones (as long as I am washing them); and have also unplugged all chargers. Little by little I’m making our house a green one.

As for me, I have been researching about how to be a green photographer. I have no idea about what I’ll do. Digital is the best solution, even though it requires a lot of energy consumption, it takes no chemicals. The problem is: I do not like digital photos. Being in the darkroom is very therapeutic for me, and pictures printed manually have a greater quality. I have heard that labs are now using less toxic chemicals, but it is still bad. The best I can do is to shoot locally (using of less transportation, therefore less CO2) and to take pictures that raise awareness about the issue; some anyway.

Another problem I have encountered is Jack, my dog. I have been trying to find alternatives to make her go green, without much success though. I researched a few websites, but didn’t find anything relevant or much different than what I’m doing now. I’ll keep looking for ways to make Jackie “eco-friendly”, until then…