THE WORLDLY FEATURED ARTIST

NANETTE MARTIN

BIO
My name is Nanette Martin and I was born in Houston, TX in 1963. Twenty-one years later I graduated from Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Geology and began a career in the corporate Environmental
Consulting industry. Motivated by a REALLY bad day at the office and 12 years of sampling, monitoring and remediating hazardous waste, I returned to school to study Photography at the Art Institute of Colorado. Two years later I had my A.A.S. degree, a picture published in LIFE Magazine and a vow to never look back. Since then my editorial work has been published in People Magazine, Sport's Illustrated, Readers Digest, Marie Claire Italy and the Advocate, along with numerous newspapers. My documentary work has been published in several textbooks, a couple of coffee table books and featured in an award-winning documentary film on hate crimes.

10 things I believe:

1) I was born to be a photographer.
2) Every lesson worth learning comes with great pain.
3) The gut is always right. The challenge is to trust it.
4) An increase in food supply leads to an increase in population for every species on this planet, including humans.
5) We are producing too much food on this planet.
6) When you mass produce anything, the perceived value of each individual unit diminishes, including humans.
7) When a person feels worthless they have nothing to lose.
8) The safest place for a fly to land is on a fly swatter.
9) If we don't change our direction we're going to end up where we're headed.
10) A disaster is considered a "Natural Disaster" only after something unnatural has been destroyed.

ABOUT NANETTE'S WORK:

I believe in the power of photography to affect change in a positive direction, so when I commit to a project like "Unnatural Disasters" it means I have something to say. Ironically, I find it much easier to
capture the images that say what I want to say than it is to describe in words what it is my images are saying. In short, "Unnatural Disasters," is a personal photographic endeavor inspired by the literary works and support of best-selling author and visionary, Daniel Quinn. The objective of the endeavor is to do with pictures what Quinn does with words: encourage a new global vision by changing the way
individuals see the world.

Through his work, Quinn explains how traditional definitions of progress, success and civilization justify and proliferate the vision that places us separate from and above the community of life that surrounds us and on a fast track to extinction. My "Unnatural Disasters" project supports Quinn's work by illustrating how the traditional definition of a "Natural Disaster" serves the same purpose.

With more than 6.5 billion people alive today and over 9 billion expected by the middle of this century, the exponential growth of the our population is pushing the front line of our expansion farther and
farther into uninhabitable areas. In doing so, we not only destroy ecosystems vital to our own survival but we put ourselves in harm's way, as disasters inevitably strike (as expected) and our floodplains
flood, our fault lines crumble and our forests burn. And what do we do? Rebuild, of course.

Most people define a natural disaster as any large-scale destruction caused by an act of nature or God, but is it? If a wildfire rages through an undeveloped forest, would a natural disaster be declared? If
a hurricane levels an uninhabited island, would emergency funds be appropriated to replace trees or control erosion? If a tornado carves a swath through a vacant field, or a mudslide sweeps away a barren hillside, or an earthquake rocks only rocks, would anyone even care? In fact, isn't a disaster considered a "natural" disaster only after something unnatural, like houses, office buildings, highways, etc., has been destroyed? Are, in fact, the only things we value on this planet those that hold economic merit to humans?

The project's scope of work involves photo-documenting Natural Disasters as Unnatural Disasters, including everything from cataclysmic events (i.e., hurricanes, terrorist attacks, etc.) to ones that fester for decades and even centuries (i.e., unchecked population growth, waste generation, etc.).

TO VIEW MORE OF NANETTE'S PHOTOGRAPHY, VISIT:
www.nanettemartin.com

TO CONTACT BEEB WITH INQUIRIES, EMAIL: nanette@nanettemartin.com