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Instagram Art Show Highlights KVPR's #droughtvoices

Credit Don Martin / Metro Galleries
/
Metro Galleries

Guests in interview above: Don Martin of Metro Galleries and KVPR Reporter and Producer Ezra David Romero. 

Over the past few months Valley Public Radio Reporter Ezra David Romero has covered California's historic drought.

He's written stories, snapped photos and launched an Instagram reporting collaborative with youth reporters, farmers and other social media users called "Voices of the Drought" using the hashtag #droughtvoices. 

“I realized after seeing other media entities use Instagram to document drought and other topics that I could pair the photos I was already posting concentrating on California’s historic drought via Instagram with Valley Public Radio’s ongoing reporting series ‘Voices of the Drought,'" Romero says.

The project has received national attention through NPR Digital Services with a blogpost and users are submitting drought related photos from around the state. The blog has received submissions from as far as Austin, Texas. 

"As a radio guy I tell stories in the most vivid way possible, but even that lacks in comparison with what one flutter of a shutter can tell. I chose to pair images with short descriptions to tell stories on a photo blog so that when a viewer with no knowledge of the region stumbles upon it they will have a vision of what Central California looks like in a drought."

Starting Friday June 6, an Instagram themed art show at Metro Galleries in Bakersfield, Calif., will display 16 of Romero's photos in an exhibit titled #droughtvoices. 

“#droughtvoices isn’t going anywhere, just like the drought is here to stay – at least through the fall. Our news team will keep on telling the human stories of drought and hopefully our social media community will continue to help build our series/blog into a visually compelling site."

Follow our droughts coverage and collaboration at Voices of the Drought TumblrInstagram, and at kvpr.org. Follow Romero on Twitter and on Instagram.

Show Info:
The Instagram Exhibit
Show Opening: Friday June 6, 5-9 p.m
Location: Metro Galleries, 1604 19th St, Bakersfield, CA 93301
Photographers: Don Martin with #MyKern, Ezra David Romero with #DroughtVoices, Adam Arriola with #AdamsGoldenStateOfMind

Exhibit runs through July, 2014

Ezra David Romero is an award-winning radio reporter and producer. His stories have run on Morning Edition, Morning Edition Saturday, Morning Edition Sunday, All Things Considered, Here & Now, The Salt, Latino USA, KQED, KALW, Harvest Public Radio, etc.
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