All shot on Nikon DSLRs with a variety of booms, stands, glides, and Geckos (dual suction cup mount for vehicles and whatnot).

Well, we returned safely from a media gathering/creating venture for a ngo called Themba International. Jeff Johnson is the founder and was kind enough to take us along as he returned to his “home away from home” to continue researching eco friendly ways to help the people of South Africa. We traveled with a small media team who’s goal was to capture imagery and create multimedia that would tell the story of the South African people living in a township called Thembalethu. The stories, imagery and content are meant to challenge the viewer to “Consume with Conscience” and provide opportunities for the viewer to be about positive change in their communities in The States while impacting and providing jobs for communities in South Africa. While in country, we branded Themba, started working on some print collateral and the website, and scripted/produced several informational videos. Our media team was filled with outstanding individuals, Jeff’s vision for Themba is right on, and the people we connected and shared stories with were inspiring beyond words.

We got the 8 panel, duel disc (CD & DVD) project printed and complete! It was quite the undertaking, but the final product is sweet!!! People from our crew here at emote360 did everything from the Photography, Design, Video and Audio production for the entire piece. One of the main organizations we regularly help, World Relief NEXT, had the concept of the piece and we brought it to reality and packaged it all up for ‘em. The launch of the project (last weekend at The Tower Theater in Bend, OR) brought in almost 10K of purchases and donations for The Congo Benefit Project!!! PURCHASE YOUR BY CLICKING HERE!!! 100% of all monies used to purchase this piece will go back to local projects in The Congo.

We just returned from Ethiopia where we were able to help a rad ngo called Agar. Agar (which is the Ethiopian word for “helper”) does incredible work with the segments of society who cannot care for themselves. They do a lot of work with the elderly and just recently obtained a grant to become a rehabilitation/reintegration center for women who have been rescued out of sexual slavery. We’ll be using the imagery we captured while in Ethiopia to create print collateral and a website, as well as a brand package makeover!!! LOVE helping out ngos in this way! Here’s a few of our favorite images from our time in this amazing country filled with the most friendly and beautiful people.

We wanted to briefly share a project that basically has our ENTIRE production team working around the clock to wrap up right now. It’s called The Congo Benefit Project. It’s a DVD and CD project that will be packaged in an 8 panel digi-pack case (above is one of the graphics we created for the packaging). There are six HD videos that retell the story of Congo and what’s currently happening to it’s people. It also includes a 15 song CD with various artist from around the country. It’ll be on sale this winter and all the proceeds go to benefit the people of Congo. Don’t know what’s happening in Congo? Find out by watching THIS VIDEO we produced earlier this year for World Relief NEXT. We’ll let you know when The Congo Benefit Project is avaliable for purchase and where you can find the product. What an amazing project to be involved in. Photography by Benjamin Edwards, design by Gary A Christenson, Copy by Matthew Smith, Video production by Beth Fischer, Audio Engineering and music production by Justin Lavik and Conor Miller. Printed with JC Nore.

The Harvest India video we shot and produced while in India early in 2009 is complete and shown on our website: CLICK HERE to visit our website, click on “Our Work”, then on “Videos”, and it’s the third one down. Shot in India, edited in Oregon. Travel Team: Mark Ellis, Peter Wiley, Gary Christenson. Post Production Team: Mark Ellis, Beth Fischer, Peter Wiley, Conor Miller and Gary Christenson. Enjoy

We are completely honored to be featured in PDN (Photo District News). They interviewed several professional photographers who are “giving back” for this months “Concerned Photographer” issue. We talked about emote360 and were even able to show some images from this year’s trips to Africa and India.

AND TO OUR SURPRISE, we also had a full page inspirational ad that friends in the photography industry created and sponsored for us (thanks to Kubota Image Tools, Azukabook, Lensbaby, VGallery, Doug Gordon and Silverback… you all are outstanding!!!).

The purpose of all the above news is to simply say, USE YOUR PASSION TO CHANGE THE WORLD. 

We are very pleased to announce that in conjunction with World Relief NEXT, we have won the “Come Clean 4 Congo” video contest held by The Enough Project and You Tube. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your votes… and MOST OF ALL, for spreading the word about what is happening in DR Congo. A team from Oregon will be heading down to the Hollywood Film Festival to show this video and speak about the subject. Thanks again for your support, we couldn’t have done it without you.  VIEW THE VIDEO