Environmental Filmmaking and the Limits of Seeing

Some environmental wonders resist the camera. Environmental filmmaker and cinematographer Dr. Isabelle Carbonell takes listeners to Bio Bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico, where dense concentrations of dinoflagellates create brilliant bioluminescence that cameras struggle to capture. That technical failure becomes a question about visibility, wonder, embodiment, and whether an imperfect image can open other ways of knowing nature. Carbonell also situates the bay within Vieques's history of colonial extraction, United States military occupation, contamination, and slow environmental violence. The result is an exploration of environmental filmmaking and visual storytelling that asks what environmental communication loses when it values only spectacular images, and what environmental justice can reveal about the things that remain unseen.

Episode Guest: Dr. Isabelle Carbonell

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Audio Editing by Clark Marchese, Video Editing by Oscar Padula

Videography and Set Design by Le Studio Du Passage

Cover Art by Laurel Wong

Theme music by Nela Ruiz

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