I am a documentary photographer and filmmaker with a Bachelor's in mass media and a Master's in public relations. I'm competent in most things media. I write, photograph, film, edit, and produce creative media, mostly on issues related to social justice. I like to get obsessed with important things no one has ever heard of.
For nearly 50 years hundreds of cast members, like the one pictured here, have assembled on the hill beneath the Manti Mormon Temple to perform the Mormon Miracle Pageant. • This theatrical performance runs nightly for two weeks every summer and attracts tens of thousands of spectators every single night. The pageant weaves several stories together including the life of Joseph Smith, the founder of the religion, and a Mormon account of early American history. • The boy in this image is dressed as a Lamanite, who, according to the Book of Mormon, were the descendants of a Hebrew profit that sailed from the Middle East to the Americas before the destruction of Jerusalem around 587 BCE. •
Will energy always be at odds with environment? An old bottle lays on the border of Nevada and California in the Mojave Desert with the Ivanpah Concentrated Solar Power Facility shining brightly in the background. The plant relies on the sun to produce relatively clean power with very little carbon emission or water waste. However, hundreds of dead birds were found on the grounds of this plant in the months after it opened many with burnt feathers. This is a concentrated solar thermal plant where hundreds of thousands of heliostats reflect sunlight into a central tower. Inside the central tower the sunlight boils a liquid into gas to turn a turbine and generate electricity for Las Vegas. Ivanpah's construction was delayed and limited because its potentially negative impact on the Desert Tortoise's habitat. Human development seems to always require a trade off. Will there ever be a day when we have a sustainable energy source that doesn't hurt the earth?
If there is anything sacred in this world certainly it must be water. The ability to access water has always been strongest social organizer in the desert and from the beginning the Diné (Navajo) people have organized themselves around springs and maintained a deep respect for water. Today, nearly 40% of Navajo Nation residents rely on hauled water for their homes. The few springs left run precariously low and are of poor quality. As global temperatures increase, and climatologists predict mega-droughts that last for decades at a time, it seems that much of the American South West could soon look like the Navajo Nation - in terms of water. What can we learn from those who live in the desert today? Traditional Diné houses are called Hogans and are gendered by their shape. This one, that Tyler Murphy is looking out of, is a woman's hogan.