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Matinee: 'Saving Our Springs'
23 March 2024
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 545th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Saving Our Springs.
This 5:42 video from Michael Paluska features National Geographic photographer Jason Gulley getting wet.
Gulley, based in Tampa, Fla., is also a research geologist whose focus is on caves, glaciers and climate change. His first camera was a Pentax K1000, which he used in high school, and his first professional job was shooting news and sports photos for the Harrison Press, his hometown newspaper in southwest Ohio.
Gulley's career has since taken him on expeditions in Florida, the Caribbean and Africa, as well as to Alaska, the Arctic and the Mt. Everest region of Nepal.
But this expedition was in his backyard in Sulphur Springs, Fla., which is still within the expansive city limits of Tampa. This spring has been closed for 40 years, Paluska tells us. You can't swim in the spring any more so the city built a pool next to it.
In contrast, we see both Paluska and Gulley (in scuba gear) slip into a crystal clear sprint at nearby Jug Hole at Ichetucknee Springs State Park.
Back at Sulphur Springs, the pair brave the murky water to show us how badly the spring has deteriorated. Split screen comparisons of conditions at the two sites make the point.
"Every year things get just a little bit worse," Gulley says. There's so much algae in the springs, he says, everything else has been choked out.
Sometimes the pollution is so bad, he admits, you can't even photograph it.
The city of Tampa plans to restore Sulphur Springs, Paluska says, as we look at old black and whites of people swimming in the spring when the water was clear.
"There's no place else in the world that has this many large springs," Gulley points out. Making them treasures worth saving.