Mountains, so massive and complex, can't be protected with a single tool or weapon. That takes an equally massive and complex weapon: art.
Pulling the trigger on her camera was photographer Chas Holzworth's way of firing a shot to protect her Prince George mountains. As the world closes in on Go Green Week, one series of her photos is in the spotlight.
Holzworth has taken thousands of pictures as a hobby and personal creative outlet. She went to school this past year to formally turn her artful passion into a business.
One of the photo assignments from Western Academy of Photography resulted in a photo series that sent social media ogling and googling. Her shutter frame clicked around a drably clad girl in apparent medical distress with blood spatters and a gaunt appearance, her oxygen mask plugged not into a steel tank but the stump of a tree, the background not a hospital but a rainforest.
"I homemade some fake blood - I have that in my tickle trunk, my box of weirdness - and we are both (she and model Katie Elliott) just giddy thinking about how to make this work," said Holzworth remembering the final preparations for the photo shoot. "We drove out to the forest and spent some time looking for the right kind of wood. We didn't want spindly trees, we wanted them big but in the background. We wanted it to look like the deep, dark woods where you go for a walk but don't come back, like in a horror movie."
The result was not a poster for a macabre film, however, but a stark calling card for nature's health.
"The trees are our lifeblood, our oxygen supply, the root system and canopy that holds together all other life in our ecosystem," she said. "It turned out exactly the way I envisioned it."
She admitted, though, that it was difficult to present to the world, starting with her photo class. She had such attachment to the imagery involved and worked so hard for the proper setting and effects that she was afraid of artistic rejection.
"When I was done editing I sat for awhile with my finger hovering over the 'post' button, then I finally clicked it, and I immediately started to cry. It had meaning, it had intent, it was something important to me, and as an artist you are looking for acceptance and understanding. In that sense I am totally happy because it just took off. It got so many 'likes' and 'shares' and people I'd never met posting comments. Even the negative reactions made me feel good. I have gotten some negative feedback; one woman told me it disturbed her."
The rainforest used for the photoshoot is on Vancouver Island - on the campus of Royal Rhodes University, specifically - but it was inspired by its similarity to the spectacular cedar splendor east of Prince George set aside in preserves and parks named Viking Ridge, Sugarbowl, Grizzly Den, Ancient Forest and others.
It was also her Prince George roots that ignited her creative side. Holzworth's family has a history of hair dressing and cosmetics which came in handy. "I had some enhanced knowledge" to make Elliott look "pale and wizened and sucked out," she said.
She also took to heart the inspiration of Mr. Jordan in her high school photography classes and Mrs. Faulkner in her PGSS art classes.
After trying to wring a profession out of the hospitality industry (she trained for this at CNC in Prince George and a position in Denver) she decided to stop ignoring her creative passions and make that her professional foundation. She is now a pro photographer in the Victoria area, but travels back to Prince George frequently for family, friends and photoshoots.
Go Green Week was, in parallel to Holzworth's photo project, inspired out of the post-secondary setting. It is the main annual climate change initiative of People And Planet, a network of university and college student activists, and it has caught on around the world. This year's theme - because the week (Feb. 10 to 16) coincides with Valentine's Day - is Break Up With the Fossil Fuel Industry.
"It's not just people hit by these [climate change-connected] disasters in faraway countries that are at risk. The worse the problem gets, the more likely we all are to end up affected," said a written statement from People And Planet. "The aim of the campaign is for our universities to fulfill their promises and go fossil free."
Again, it is Prince George where that model can be sourced. UNBC is the winner of international awards for climate-saving research, education, and its bioenergy system.
For more information on Go Green Week, visit the People And Planet website.
For more information on Holzworth's work, visit her Ocean Wave Photography website.
