In photos: the faces and places of the fracking boom

• Kara Holsopple/The Allegheny Front
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  Kara Holsopple is committed to telling environmental stories that connect people to faces and places nearby, and to the wider world. Kara is a lifelong resident of southwestern Pennsylvania, except for her undergraduate years at Sarah Lawrence College. She holds a masters degree in professional writing from Chatham University, and has been a features writer for regional magazines. Kara got her start in radio working with Pittsburgh Indymedia’s Rustbelt Radio. She produced "The Allegheny Front Rewind" series, celebrating the show's 20th anniversary, and her work has been heard on The Environment Report, Inside Appalachia and Here & Now. One summer she read all of Agatha Christie’s detective novels.

The story of the fracking boom in Pennsylvania and nearby states runs as an almost continuous narrative in the region’s press.
But covering the blow-by-blow of new drilling sites, protests, lawsuits and regulations is just one way to look at how fracking has changed the region. Back when unconventional natural gas drilling started gaining momentum, a group of photographers set out to gather a more personal perspective—by using photography to document the lives and landscapes that were being transformed by the drilling boom.
The Marcellus Shale Documentary Project has collected hundreds of images since, many of which are included in a new exhibition titled “An Expanded View.” Co-curator Laura Domencic says, in many ways, not much has changed since the project first started back in 2010: Health issues and the industrial footprint that fracking imposes on rural landscapes remain familiar themes.
But she says it’s also important to continue this work to gather a broad perspective on an issue that will no doubt have a lasting impact on the region. “When you document something, it helps tell that story for generations to come,” she says. “And not that this is the entire story, but this is a part of the story that wouldn’t be heard otherwise.”
See more photos and listen to an interview with Domencic on the Allegheny Front’s website.

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