The Alpha

Proposal 1/The Alpha

            Having been in Tucson for over three years now I regularly explore Mount Lemmon, yet I know almost nothing of the rangers and other support staff whose job it is to maintain public areas, check trails, and look for lost persons.  In this project I would contact the Coronado park rangers and ask for permission to go along with different people in their day-to-day jobs, documenting things they do and what not.  I will use my Cannon 50d and perhaps a 120mm film camera.  I will exhibit single images in each print.  My ability to do this project will be restricted by my ability to get permission to go with park services/rangers, to get this I will go to the local office and ask what I can do.  I will be able to shoot them mostly on weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) because I lack the time during the week to get up the mountain shoot and make it back to classes, and most of my classes end late enough that I would be having to take a lot of night shots, which while I am willing to take I am not sure they would turn out very well as I do not have the proper equipment to actually shoot it, however if there is an opportunity to do so I will take it. 

            This project is significant because the Coronado parks area is slowly being more and more developed by different projects aimed at improving the economy of Arizona while destroying this unique environment.  This would be a study of those people who are there conserving the “sky island” from the public, for the public. 

            Step one will be to obtain permission, This will be accomplished by contacting the ranger office, by far the easiest step as email contact and phone calls can be made from anywhere at any time.  Should I be rejected I will go down to the office and plead my case.  Step two will be working out who I will be following and when since I have 3 free days I feel I can accomplish one or two “ride alongs” a week. 

            From this project I feel I will be able to capture a sense of what it is like to be a park ranger.

Funding for this will be covered from pocket, it takes half a tank of gas to go up and down Mount Lemmon, and if I am going to shoot two days in a row it is possible to camp at a free campsite on the mountain.  Also film will be a cost, but developing the film will be free as I have access to the darkroom’s film development, and I have enough left over paper that I will be able to print for “free.”