BRIDGET BESAW
Director & Producer
Bridget is a New England Emmy-nominated filmmaker and founder of Seedlight Pictures. Before finding her second passion as a director, Bridget enjoyed a career as an award-winning newspaper and magazine photographer, capturing national stories for Smithsonian, Newsweek, Time, Forbes, Fortune, National Geographic among others. As a Nikon Ambassador and Leica sponsored photographer, Bridget created large scale documentary projects for The Nature Conservancy in all corners of the globe.
Bridget is the author of two photography books—Wildness Within, Wildness Without (2008) and From The Land (2012). The creation of these books inspired her to start using her skills as a visual storyteller to rally attention for wilderness preservation and food sustainability. Since that pivot, Bridget has shot, directed, and produced numerous shorts for environmental NGOs on resource depletion and sustainability.
Her first independent film project culminated in the Growing Local series (2015), and screened to acclaim at festivals nationwide. Her short film Seeding A Dream (2015), won several audience choice awards and was a finalist for the DCEFF Eric Moe Sustainability Award. Her two latest shorts, Guided and The Nature Of Maps, both toured the 2016-2017 festival circuits winning audience choice awards. Bridget’s feature doc in progress The Mountain and The Magic City, was supported by the LEF Foundation and invited to the Points North Institute Fellowship and the PNI/TFI Retreat.
Bridget is proud to be a board member of the Camden International Film Festival and Points North Institute, and to be a board advisor to the Chewonki Foundation.
Bridget’s intention is to craft visual stories that serve as a rousting reminder of our collective instinct to care for the planet that sustains us.
Besaw has a way of combining soft light and evocative storytelling into the kinds of films that cause tears to flow, whether it is watching a family struggle with a farm’s future or a pair of optimistic young farmers dance at their rural wedding.
Mary Pols
The Source, Portland Press Herald
Bridget is rare photojournalist who has deep understanding of and passion for investigating the relationship between humans and the natural resources on our planet. Her journalistic expertise and methodology gives her the ability to look intimately at natural resource issues to reveal complex and nuanced stories.
Melissa Ryan
Deputy Director & Senior Editor, Nature Conservancy Magazine
Bridget Besaw is a talented photojournalist with a sophisticated sense of contemporary conservation needs and principals. Bridget has a remarkable commitment and discipline which she uses to produce strong, targeted photography that tells the conservation story and related human narrative.
Mark Godfrey
Director of Photography, The Nature Conservancy
Bridget Besaw is one of those enviable women who are blessed with immense talent, a contagious passion, and the entrepreneurial acumen to transform that into a livelihood that sustains her and the planet she cares so deeply for.
Ellen Barone
The Savvy Traveler
Bridget Besaw uses her extensive photographic wiles for a sacred purpose: She is out to save the world’s wild and fragile places. Besaw shows us that mankind’s footprint does not need to be heavy, and her work inspires stewardship more than these same scenes ever could without their human subjects.
Bangor Daily News
BOOK PROJECTS
—
• WILDNESS WITHIN •
• FROM THE LAND •
COLLABORATORS
—
DANIEL CASADO
Producer & Camera
Director of DCPHOTO, Dani is a Photojournalist, filmmaker and visual communicator with a focus on science, Nature and environment.He has contributed to diverse communications campaigns and scientific expeditions all over South America and Northeastern US collaborating with conservation NGO´s such as WWF, MERI Foundation, OMORA Ethnobothanical Park, Futaleufú Riverkeepers, Vigilante Costero Maule-Itata, and national reforestation campaigns, among others. In the US he has collaborated with environmental institutions such as The Chewonki Foundation, Maine Woods Forever and Maine Farmland Trust. Dani’s interest as a communicator is to fill the missing link between science and people, trying to bring scientific discoveries and studies closer to everyday life, and to create awareness about the fragility of our ecosystems.
TAHRIA SHEATHER
Producer, Camera & Editor
Tahria is a commercial and documentary producer based in Portland, Oregon. Hailing originally from, Sydney, Australia, she has worked in remote locations in over 15 countries across the world. Tahria produces branded content, investigative journalism and TV and online series for brands like Ledlenser, Chaco Footwear and Travel Oregon, media outlets like National Geographic and PBS, and non-profits including The Nature Conservancy, Maine Farmland Trust and Neighborhood Centers Inc. Tahria’s recent work with National Geographic includes producing a broadcast series following the path of human evolution through the horn of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Africa; a branded content series for the Adventure online magazine and an investigative story with two Explorers in central Africa. With collaborators like Seedlight Pictures and Maser Films, she acts as the master logistician throughout pre-, in-field and post-production stages of each project. She is as capable behind the camera as she is crafting story in the editing suite.
PAR PAREKH
Editor, Camera, Producer & Director
Par Parekh is an LA and NYC-based filmmaker working in independent film and advertising. An accomplished editor, director, producer, and cameraman, his films have been official selections at such venues as the the Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, the LA Film Festival, and others. Parekh produced and co-wrote Glory at Sea, winner of the Wholphin Best Short Film Award at SXSW. He recently completed editing a feature-length documentary about Cameron Crowe's film Aloha, starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, and Alec Baldwin. In addition, he has created promotional videos for such musical talents as Beyoncé, Celine Dion, Shuggie Otis, and Willie Nelson.