The HARD RAIN PROJECT is a new venture springing from Mark Edwards' Still Pictures photo agency. The exhibition coming to Greenbelt is on a world tour that has already seen it wow thousands at the Eden Project in Cornwall, the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, the Real Jardin Botanico in Madrid, and the Tollberg Forum, Leksands Museum, Sweden. MARK EDWARDS is one of the most widely published editorial photographers in the world. He founded Still Pictures, regarded as the leading photo agency specializing in environmental issues, the Third World and nature. He is the co-author of Changing Consciousness with David Bohm and has written several books on photography. He is based in London. -------------------- Here's more about the origins of the idea and the inspiration of the Dylan lyric July, 1969. Mark Edwards, lost on the edge of the Sahara, is rescued by a Tuareg nomad, who takes him to his people, makes a fire and produces a cassette player. Bob Dylan sings A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall. As Dylan piles image upon image, the idea comes to Edwards of illustrating each line of the song. In the years that follow, he travels to over 150 countries to photograph our headlong collision with nature. Hard Rain is the result — an unforgettable collection of photographs illustrating Dylan’s prophetic lyric. Images from Edwards’ personal archive, plus contributions by Sebastião Salgado, Chris Steele-Perkins and others, combine with the words of rock music’s great, poetic writer to form the centrepiece of Hard Rain. “There is now a widespread acknowledgement that human beings are changing the climate. But we are still in denial. The implications of global warming hover just outside the grasp of our imaginations. Bob Dylan’s piercing lyric, and photographs that conjure up a future too terrible to contemplate, bring alive the problems that are ours to solve. “Will we, our governments, the faith community, business leaders, media and the arts be bold and brave enough to act? Or do we brace ourselves for a truly miserable descent into environmental and social collapse?” Mark Edwards