A couple of years ago - I had the distinct pleasure of working with Florentine Films (Oscar winning documentary-film producer
Ken Burn's production company) producer/writer
Dayton Duncan and famed cinematographer
Buddy Squires on "The Dust Bowl" to air on PBS in 2012.
My job?
Since I am a long-time Texas Panhandle resident (and a storm photographer) it was my task to roam the High Plains in search of Dust Bowl-era looking locations for the cinematic crew.
When I was offered the job - I jumped at the chance. It was not a bad paying gig - and a great once-in-a-lifetime chance to be associated with (even in a minor capacity) the highly respected Ken Burns and Florentine Films who have produced such amazing historical documentary films such as
Baseball,
The Civil War and (my favorite)
The War.
The Dust Bowl documents the Dirty Thirties - a time of unprecedented drought resulting in major agricultural damage and cultural changes in America that coincided with
The Great Depression. It was without a doubt the worst man-made ecological disaster ever recorded with echoes that still reverberate through the region to this day and
in fact history may be repeating itself with another severe drought (even worse than that of the 1930s) plaguing much of the southwestern United States.
But I digress - and that's basically the point of this blog.
To understand the present, we must look to the past. I encourage you to learn much more about the Dust Bowl by reading
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan - which I used for guidance during my Dust Bowl location scouts.
It's a great place to start and thus (ends) my first post.
More soon.
Steve Douglass
