“I’ve been hoping to see you!” Sam came out to intercept me as I was walking along the dirt road past his house on my way to Sitka Spruce Grove. It was an overcast, cold November morning, the tinny smell of snow in the air. “I’ve been seeing a bird I’ve never seen out here. Batman birds. They have a dark head, like Batman’s hood. Nick’s been seeing them too. We’ve been calling them Batman birds.”

“Yeah. I’ve been seeing them too. Just in the last few days, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve never seen them before. What are they?”

“Oregon Juncos. They’re not supposed to be here. I’ve checked my books and range maps on the internet. This might be the first time they’ve ever been out here.”

Sam, in his early 70’s and not more than five-six looked up at me as he rolled the burning cigarette he was holding between his thumb and his first two fingers. For a moment nothing was said. He lifted his arm to take a drag and looked out over the landscape as he let the smoke out. Winter-brown salmonberry breaks and willows, scrub alders an even more drab shade of brown covered the country all the way to the treeline on nearby snow-capped mountains, country that in Sam’s youth had mostly been tundra.

“Things sure are changing here,” he said.

There are still people in denial, people who not so very long ago dismissed Climate Warming as some sort of hoax, who refused to believe any scientists except those who work for the fossil fuel industry. Most of those hardcore deniers have given up the tack of total denial. But they haven’t gone away, and they certainly haven’t conceded their error. Instead, the refrain now is initial agreement, “Yes, it appears the earth is getting warmer,” followed by a deflating return to denialism with, “but the world has always been changing.”

Not with this rapidity it hasn’t – the occasional meteor strike notwithstanding.

The result is that almost anywhere one lives, change can be observed in real time. This might be manifested in new species of flowers and other plants, new birds, other vertebrates, insects… or the rather sudden absence of formerly familiar species. Anyone with a camera has a chance to contribute to real-time, meaningful documentation of the change that is occurring right now all around us.

It’s not just the natural world that is undergoing rapid change. As expanding urbanization follows an overpopulated species across the globe, historic buildings are being torn down, forests leveled, rivers rerouted, lakes and aquifers emptied. Things that had remained much the same for decades, for generations even, are suddenly in a state of upheaval.

Photography is used for many things: to capture holiday moments; family portraits; events of all kinds; and increasingly, to make fine art. But some of the most compelling photographic images have always been and continue to be well-composed, straightforward documentation.

Anyone with a camera can make a meaningful contribution. Get out and shoot.