Marin Media Lecture Series

We are pleased to announce that documentary photographers Melanie and Ken Light will be speaking at the May installment of the Marin Media Lecture Series, an evening co-sponsored by the Community Media Center of Marin and Sustainable San Rafael.  Sustainable San Rafael President Bill Carney will interview Melanie and Ken about their latest book project, Valley of Shadows and Dreams.

Valley of Shadows and Dreams is a collection of photographs and essays that examine the recent development boom in the Central Valley.  Through their mixed media approach the Lights show us the cost of unsustainable development on the agricultural land and people of the Central Valley.  In their discussion the Lights and Mr. Carney will discuss what moved and motivated them to document this story and how media can be used as a tool to make social and environmental change.

Valley of Shadows and Dreams is the second collaboration between Melanie and Ken Light.  Their first co-authored work, Coal Hollow, is a collection of photographs and oral histories that chronicle the legacy of coalmining in West Virginia.  Melanie lectures and teaches internationally and is the recipient of grants from the Soros Documentary Fund and the Rosenberg Foundation.  Ken Light is the author of numerous photography books including Witness in out Time, Texas Death Row, Delta Time, To the Promised Land and With these Hands.  He teaches the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and is a Laventhol visiting Professor at Columbia University.