Roxanne Pickering, a mother of four, lives with her husband and six year-old daughter in a small Brooklyn apartment. Crippled in a motorcycle accident 13 years earlier, Pickering found new reason to live with the birth of her youngest child. She is a doting and vigilant mother.
Betty Lester is a 40-year resident of the neighborhood, living in the nearby Gowanus apartment blocks. She is a neighborhood activist and, for years, has tried to bring attention to the Gowanus Canal, for which the neighborhood is named. The Gowanus Canal is bounded by several communities including Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. The canal empties into New York Harbor. Completed in 1869, the Gowanus Canal was once a major transportation route for the then separate cities of Brooklyn and New York City. Manufactured gas plants, mills, tanneries, and chemical plants are among the many facilities that operated along the canal.
As a result of years of discharges, storm water runoff, sewer outflows and industrial pollutants, the Gowanus Canal has become one of the nation's most extensively contaminated water bodies. Contaminants include PCBs, coal tar wastes, heavy metals and volatile organics. The contamination poses a threat to the nearby residents who use the canal for fishing and recreation.
On March 2, 2010, the Gowanus Canal was named a Superfund Site by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), entitling it to an intensive study and massive clean up effort. The EPA expects the effort to cost $300-$500 million and take 10-20 years.
Close to Home is a product of the MediaStorm Storytelling Workshop, where participants work alongside MediaStorm staff to create an intimate, character-driven documentary in just one week. Learn more about upcoming MediaStorm workshops and online training at mediastorm.com/train.
Credits
Special Thanks
Roxanne Pickering and Family
Betty Lester
Maria Pagano
Marla Wonboy
Testimonials
Mary Beth Meehan, Photography and Video
I have not been this inspired about photography and photojournalism in almost ten years.
MediaStorm puts together an unbelievable combination of talented working professionals and experienced multimedia producers, and invites everyone to come together in a spirit of complete collaboration - and fun.
They share all of their cutting-edge awareness of how photography, audio, and video can work together, and you leave them feeling that you can take your work to a whole different level. I'm already thinking of things differently, trying to stretch beyond simply assembling still pictures to tell a story, and wondering how video and audio narrative might breathe some life into projects of my own.
Audio and video aren't just adaptive tools for surviving on the internet; they really can add layers of meaning and power to what we've been doing all these years as still photographers. The workshops are an act of generosity, really, as you get the sense that MediaStorm really wants to elevate all of our work, and take us along with them into the future of photojournalism.
Michele Asselin, Photography and Video
On the first day of the MediaStorm workshop I understood how much was lacking in my work, by the last day I understood how much was possible. I never would have wanted to make this transition without their guidance and I have no doubt that I have learned from the best.
Maria Finitzo, Interviews and Editing
It was an amazing privilege to be a part of a professional experience that was dominated by a generosity of spirit the likes of which I have rarely experienced. Everyone worked together to make the story a success. There was no ego, no territory, just a desire to tell the best story possible.
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