Environmental Photographers
Andrew McConnell
Andrew McConnell is an Irish photographer who began his career as a press photographer, covering the latter of the conflict in Ireland. After this he then continued on to go into more in-depth social documentary work around the world.
His work has been used by many international magazines, such as; The National Geographic, The Guardian , Time Magazine and many more.
This photographer caught my eye for his work on a rubbish dump in a small suburb called Agbogbloshie, which is situated in Accra, the capital of Ghana. His project was called Rubbish 2.0 and before I stumbled across it I never knew that Western countries try to unload their ever increasing stockpiles of electronic junk to poor nations like Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. After reading up about McConnell's project I found out that, from every 20 to 50 million tons of electronics that are thrown out each year, around 70% of it will end up in impoverished nations. This occurs by traders circumventing international laws by labelling the waste as second-hand goods or charity donations, when as a matter of fact over 80% of it is broken.
Andrew McConnell's project, Rubbish 2.0, is based around this e-wastes (electronic waste) final resting place, which is, Agbogloshie, where it is broken apart, mainly by children, in order to salvage anything that can be sold.
What truly inspired me within this project of his were the images that he produced, as they are very hard hitting and after reading up about it, I found them quite harrowing. I feel what really makes these pictures stand out is by seeing these vast quantities of waste with children working amongst it in order to find something that they can earn some money from. The children accentuate these photographs as people look upon children as, innocent, care free and happy. So for them to be scavenging through heaps of harmful waste it paints the picture of how awful this issue is.
I especially like the top picture out of these two, as I feel it really adds to this sense of dirt, pollution and hardship that the people of this small suburb are exposed to because of wealthier countries. It does this by homing in on the lack of colour and the landscape being engulfed in this black lake of decaying waste and pollution, while something in the distance is puffing out a thick black smoke. I also believe that the framing is key in this photo, as by shooting at a lower level he has made the waste a far greater part of the image, thus not allowing for the attention to be solely on the destruction.
After looking at Andrew McConnell's work it has inspired me to make my images as hard hitting as I can, yet I still want to incorporate the beauty of the landscape so that I am being unique in my own style of work. Another feature that I want to integrate into my work from looking at his, is that of overplaying the waste within the photograph. For instance, either multiplying the amount of rubbish on Photoshop or actually finding a lot more and using it so that it submerges the landscape.
Sophie Gerrard
Sophie Gerrard is another photographer that covered this issue of the transportation of e-waste from developed countries to less developed ones, though her work is around how this problem is affecting India. From looking at her work I found out India has become the largest dumping ground for e-waste and the amount of toxic chemicals and metals associated with this type of waste is astonishing. This waste can contain; lead, cadmium, mercury, tin, gold, copper, PVC and brominated, chlorinated and phosphorus based flame retardants. The majority of these metals and contaminants are extremely harmful to humans, animals and plants.
I also found out about a certain convention could the 'Basel Convention' which is an international treaty that was created in order to reduce the amount of hazardous waste going between nations, so the fact that this waste is still being transported is a direct violation.
Personally, I prefer Andrew McConnell's work as I feel his images carry a greater impact, mainly due to the fact that he has captured children encased in this tragedy. Sophie Gerrard's work, on the other hand, I feel is quite weak in comparison, mainly because they seem staged as they focus on singular people or patches of waste. For example, the picture to the left is concentrating on this one person swamped by this mountain of waste. This is good but it feels posed and unnatural, whereas, Andrew McConnell's photos seem to be very literal and natural. A good example to back up my hypothesis is his picture of the children pushing a big trailer of salvaged goods through the wasteland.
Another problem with Sophie Gerrard's photographs is the way she has cropped them to the size of a small box, thus removing the feeling of this problem being vast and unending, which a landscape shot creates as it incorporates a greater area.
Nonetheless, I still like her work as I feel she takes a different approach to McConnell's, as she focuses on how this waste affects the peoples way of life and their communities. A key example of this within her work are these two photographs. I chose this one as it shows a huge mound of waste that appears to be dumped on a road in between two houses or apartment blocks. This accentuates the problem affecting these people's lives as, unlike McConnell's work where a vast un-inhabited landscape is coated in waste, this is within a place where people live. From showing this side of it I feel she has added to the shock factor within her photos.
I prefer her photographs that do not contain people, as they are more natural and carry a greater impact.
This photograph I feel further heightens the feeling of the e-waste getting in the way of the people's lives. It does this is purely by the fact that this is someones house and it appears to be stricken with scrap electronics, showing what these people are exposed to hazardous waste within their household.
Sophie Gerrard has played on how a home is supposed to be a place of sanctum of comfort and safety and by showing these images that feeling is squashed, making whoever views them feel a sense of empathy towards the people who live with this.
All in all I feel that both Sophie Gerrard and Andrew McConnell's work packs a similar strong impact, even though I still do prefer McConnel's work, I do like how Gerrard chose to focus on how it affects the inhabitants of these areas and how their lives are affected by it.
Sophie Gerrard has played on how a home is supposed to be a place of sanctum of comfort and safety and by showing these images that feeling is squashed, making whoever views them feel a sense of empathy towards the people who live with this.
All in all I feel that both Sophie Gerrard and Andrew McConnell's work packs a similar strong impact, even though I still do prefer McConnel's work, I do like how Gerrard chose to focus on how it affects the inhabitants of these areas and how their lives are affected by it.
National Geographic
Ken Graham
During my research I looked into the National Geographic to see what images they had that could inspire me with my work. I came across a photo gallery on polluted oceans, within it there was a series of photographs, one being very similar to what I hope to create for my project.
This image here by Ken Graham is of the coast of Barrow in Alaska which has become tarnished with garbage that is slowly decomposing, harming marine life and polluting the water.
My motive behind choosing this picture is because of how alike it is to my own work. For example, I am hoping to create a series of images where waste and pollution are destroying beautiful landscapes and in this image you can clearly see that this vast array of rubbish has destroyed what appears to be a lovely sapphire coloured coastline. However, obviously I will not be able to recreate an image just like this as it has not been tampered with in order to make it more dramatic. Within my photographs I hope to set a scene, as to come across something like this in the United Kingdom is very unlikely. Nonetheless, I will collect as much rubbish as I possible can and arrange it to obstruct the natural beauty of the shot.
I tried finding out more on Ken Graham but I could not find any other work by him apart from what had been posted on the National Geographic website.
However, I did do some further research into the waste and pollution problem in Alaska as it surprised me from it being part of America. What I found from looking into the problem at hand was that parts of Alaska are in a serious state of toxic pollution. Alaska is home to thousands of industrial and military toxic waste dumps. In June 2006 a report was released that complied state records on all of the known nuclear, mining and military waste sites in Alaska. One-third of this waste is contributed to by the U.S. Department of Defense and there could be up to 10,000 abandoned defense sites that are polluted.
Adding to this waste problem are thousands of small landfills and industrial waste pits that Alaska does not monitor. A large portion of the toxic waste dumps are spread along Alaska's coast and next to lakes, streams and freshwater aquifers. The waste could be contaminating the drinking water. Over 70% of Alaska's residents acquire their drinking water from small water systems or private wells. However, the amount of pollution is not yet known nor is it monitored.
China Photos, Getty Images
This photograph is of the severity of waste and pollution issue in Manila Bay, in the Philippines where, as you can see it is so over run with rubbish that it has submerged the bay's water.
Yet again, like Andrew McConnell's photographs, this is focused on the child's struggle of having to live in such an environment, trekking through the vast reservoir of rubbish.
Just like Agbogbloshie, this impoverished part of the world has to succumb to the waste of other wealthier parts of the world. Once I had seen this photograph, I decided to look into the problem at Manila Bay a little further and found that the waste is far worse than what you can see in the picture.
Within this article I read on the 'Voice of America', it stated that five years ago Manila Bay was deemed unfit for swimming and Philippine authorities were held responsible for cleaning it up and maintaining it, by the supreme court. However, five years on and Manila Bay still remains coated in rubbish and riddled with pollution.
They had also put steps in place to test the water every quarter of a year to see the levels of coliform bacteria which was the main pollutant of the bay and is found in faeces. Upon looking at the results from the third quarter of last year, they found that there was one-billion parts of microorganisms per 100 milliliters of seawater, with the acceptable amount being 5,000 parts per 100 milliliters.
After reading this I realised that just taking images of waste destroying the landscape was not enough. I feel that if I have a combination of really hard-hitting images with no beauty in them whatsoever, and then photographs of waste and pollution swamping the beauty of the landscape, I will be able to convey my point better. The reason for this is, by merely showing a few images of waste in a landscape, my main point will not be as strong as I would have hoped. For instance, with the combination of the hard-hitting pictures of the harm of pollution and waste, it will draw the attention within my other photographs to be solely on the waste.
Jakob Philipp Hackert
Landscape art is the portrayal of natural scenery, like: mountains, valleys, trees, rivers and forests, and dates back to almost the dawn of man. However, it never really came into fruition until the 1500's.
My basis for looking into landscape art is because of the period of time that it has been around and the fact that it predates the industrial era. Landscape artists of the 14th-19th century drew and painted exquisite scenes of the natural world in its vibrant, peaceful prime, not suffering at the hands of large industrial complexes.
I wish to incorporate this into my own work as it was the first form of capturing the landscape. As this precedes the industrial era I want to edit some of my images like these paintings, where a beautiful, peaceful landscape has been captured, I want to capture how a once beautiful landscape has been destroyed.
I envisage doing this is by using HDR to create a surreal painting-like effect. However, I will reduce the colour saturation in an attempt to show a strong contrast between the beauty of the landscape art and the reality of industrial landscapes of this modern age.
Similar to Newhaven, Shoreham had a biofuel power plant built, despite protests from Brighton and Hove Council who opposed it due to the air pollution concerns. However, this is not as big a polluter as an incinerator, because it burns biofuel instead of rubbish.
What I was most interested in was the sewage plant in Shoreham, as there have been problems in the past to do with raw, untreated sewage being pumped into the sea. The sewage plant has also been picked up on by the environmental group 'Surfers Against Sewage' (SAS), due to their poor treatment of sewage. Through my research into Shoreham I found out that it is home to a 3.1km sewage pipe that pumps poorly treated sewage into the English Channel. After hearing about this I looked into the treatment of sewage a little more. I found out that there are a variety of different environmentally friendly ways of treating sewage, one being exposure to ultra violet (UV) light, as it kills off hazardous bacteria. This method is the cheapest environmentally friendly way to treat sewage, yet Shoreham persist in not doing so. I also found that there is such technology that can allow you to re-use sewage as drinking water. Nonetheless, this is only being used in Singapore and is yet to be used anywhere else in the world. This is made possible because sewage is mainly made up of water, so this technology extracts the water element by destroying the other elements.
Out of these eight I decided to visit two, the first being Bantham, where I intended to create my scene using fish heads and rubbish I found on the beach. The other being Mothecombe, as I have heard quite disgusting things about the water there. They also are relatively easy for me to get to as they are only a short drive away. I did not want to go to the Plymouth Hoe as I wanted to look outside of cities at the more rural beaches and shorelines.
However, I did do some further research into the waste and pollution problem in Alaska as it surprised me from it being part of America. What I found from looking into the problem at hand was that parts of Alaska are in a serious state of toxic pollution. Alaska is home to thousands of industrial and military toxic waste dumps. In June 2006 a report was released that complied state records on all of the known nuclear, mining and military waste sites in Alaska. One-third of this waste is contributed to by the U.S. Department of Defense and there could be up to 10,000 abandoned defense sites that are polluted.
Adding to this waste problem are thousands of small landfills and industrial waste pits that Alaska does not monitor. A large portion of the toxic waste dumps are spread along Alaska's coast and next to lakes, streams and freshwater aquifers. The waste could be contaminating the drinking water. Over 70% of Alaska's residents acquire their drinking water from small water systems or private wells. However, the amount of pollution is not yet known nor is it monitored.
China Photos, Getty Images
This photograph is of the severity of waste and pollution issue in Manila Bay, in the Philippines where, as you can see it is so over run with rubbish that it has submerged the bay's water.Yet again, like Andrew McConnell's photographs, this is focused on the child's struggle of having to live in such an environment, trekking through the vast reservoir of rubbish.
Just like Agbogbloshie, this impoverished part of the world has to succumb to the waste of other wealthier parts of the world. Once I had seen this photograph, I decided to look into the problem at Manila Bay a little further and found that the waste is far worse than what you can see in the picture.
Within this article I read on the 'Voice of America', it stated that five years ago Manila Bay was deemed unfit for swimming and Philippine authorities were held responsible for cleaning it up and maintaining it, by the supreme court. However, five years on and Manila Bay still remains coated in rubbish and riddled with pollution.
They had also put steps in place to test the water every quarter of a year to see the levels of coliform bacteria which was the main pollutant of the bay and is found in faeces. Upon looking at the results from the third quarter of last year, they found that there was one-billion parts of microorganisms per 100 milliliters of seawater, with the acceptable amount being 5,000 parts per 100 milliliters.
After reading this I realised that just taking images of waste destroying the landscape was not enough. I feel that if I have a combination of really hard-hitting images with no beauty in them whatsoever, and then photographs of waste and pollution swamping the beauty of the landscape, I will be able to convey my point better. The reason for this is, by merely showing a few images of waste in a landscape, my main point will not be as strong as I would have hoped. For instance, with the combination of the hard-hitting pictures of the harm of pollution and waste, it will draw the attention within my other photographs to be solely on the waste.
Wang Jiuliang
Wang Jiuliang is a freelance photographer based in Beijing, who, in October 2008, visited nearly every major landfill site around Beijing, as he documented the increasing waste problem in China's capital. He named his work "China's Traditions in Worshiping Gods and Spirits". Since 2008, he has engrossed himself into the investigation of the garbage crisis within Beijing, that involves over 460 landfills and 10,000 photographers. He also created a documentary film called "Beijing Besieged by Waste".
This inspired me as he was a small time photographer that made a name for himself by personally highlighting the problem of waste within his life by going out of his way to find these places that were overrun by rubbish. I also was astonished when I saw animals grazing among a field of garbage, which adds to the list of things affected by waste and pollution.
I decided that, like Wang's work, I hope to visit places around my area that are affected by pollution and waste and in a series of images document the extent of this problem. Nevertheless, I will still be combining the hard-hitting images with the pictures of the landscape being destroyed by waste.
Upon discovering this photographer's work I decided to look further into Beijing's pollution crisis to which I found how truly bad it is. Beijing's pollution is so bad that its residents have to wear face/gas masks in order to avoid inhaling the hazardous chemicals found within the smog that has encased Beijing. I also found out that one of the reasons why Beijing suffers from this, is down to the geographical positioning of the city. Because it is surrounded by mountains this means they succumb to a calamitous phenomenon of an inversion layer. An inversion layer is when the cold air settles on top of a warmer air mass, trapping the pollutants inside. However, the main problem within Beijing results from China's policies and mass industrial market, not to mention the over population of Beijing of 20 million and their 5 million cars, a number that keeps rising.
Landscape Art Research
Landscape Art
My basis for looking into landscape art is because of the period of time that it has been around and the fact that it predates the industrial era. Landscape artists of the 14th-19th century drew and painted exquisite scenes of the natural world in its vibrant, peaceful prime, not suffering at the hands of large industrial complexes.
Charles Calvert
I wish to incorporate this into my own work as it was the first form of capturing the landscape. As this precedes the industrial era I want to edit some of my images like these paintings, where a beautiful, peaceful landscape has been captured, I want to capture how a once beautiful landscape has been destroyed.I envisage doing this is by using HDR to create a surreal painting-like effect. However, I will reduce the colour saturation in an attempt to show a strong contrast between the beauty of the landscape art and the reality of industrial landscapes of this modern age.
Pictorialism
Peter Henry Emerson
Pictorialism is an artistic movement that dominated photography throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It began in response to a series of claims stating that photographs were simple records of reality. Pictorialism went on to become an international progression that increased the status of photography as an art form.
The aim, for pictorialists, was to
encourage the viewer to perceive a photograph in much the same manner as they would connect emotionally with a painting, drawing or engraving.
encourage the viewer to perceive a photograph in much the same manner as they would connect emotionally with a painting, drawing or engraving.
This caught my eye as it was a movement that aimed to do what I myself hope to create in some of my photographs. They created painting-like pictures that gave photography more depth and more credence in artistic circles.
Southern England Waste Issues Research
South East
Newhaven
I have known about Newhaven for a long time as I remember it from when I used to nearby. However, it was not as bad back then as it is today. Nonetheless, it has been known for being a dumping ground for quite sometime. Upon researching further into Newhaven, I came across a series of news articles, one being from The Argus, the Sussex local newspaper. Within this article it stated that Newhaven's levels of pollution are drastically increasing which is being caused by the high volumes of traffic that travel through every day. It also stated that this can have a long term effect on the life expectancy of people living in the small port town. However, in this article they strangely left out the pollution caused by the incinerator that was opened in 2012, so I decided to look further into it. I found out that there has been research done into babies being born with birth defects like: spina bifida, heart defects, as well as a larger number of still births occurring in people that lived near an incinerator.
Newhaven's incinerator caused a lot of controversy within the town as 16,000 objections were made towards it being built, even though the population of the town is only 12,000. However, despite the town's efforts, that resulted in a ten year debate, the incinerator was still built and opened. Incinerators take the waste left over from recycling and compost collections and turn it into fuel, thus using the rubbish in place of coal or gas to drive turbines and produce electricity. This sounds environmentally friendly but it has its limitations. For example, I read a statement from an environmental group called 'UK Without Incineration Network', who believe that incinerators are extremely disastrous, in terms of climate, cost and efficiency. They also stated that they require a certain amount of waste to keep the furnaces going, meaning that the local communities will have to continue to produce waste for 20 years, instead of reducing or recyling.
Shoreham
Similar to Newhaven, Shoreham had a biofuel power plant built, despite protests from Brighton and Hove Council who opposed it due to the air pollution concerns. However, this is not as big a polluter as an incinerator, because it burns biofuel instead of rubbish.
What I was most interested in was the sewage plant in Shoreham, as there have been problems in the past to do with raw, untreated sewage being pumped into the sea. The sewage plant has also been picked up on by the environmental group 'Surfers Against Sewage' (SAS), due to their poor treatment of sewage. Through my research into Shoreham I found out that it is home to a 3.1km sewage pipe that pumps poorly treated sewage into the English Channel. After hearing about this I looked into the treatment of sewage a little more. I found out that there are a variety of different environmentally friendly ways of treating sewage, one being exposure to ultra violet (UV) light, as it kills off hazardous bacteria. This method is the cheapest environmentally friendly way to treat sewage, yet Shoreham persist in not doing so. I also found that there is such technology that can allow you to re-use sewage as drinking water. Nonetheless, this is only being used in Singapore and is yet to be used anywhere else in the world. This is made possible because sewage is mainly made up of water, so this technology extracts the water element by destroying the other elements.
South West
Dead Sea Birds
One of my main inspirations for this project was the recent horrific event of almost 1,000 sea birds being washed up on the shores of south-west England, coated in a sticky substance. Most of them that washed up were dead. However, some were alive but just rendered helpless. The sticky substance that these birds were covered in was polyisobutene (PIB), which is an oil additive used to enhance the performance of both the ship's engine and lubricating oil.
The species of bird most affected by this atrocity was the guillemot. Other birds that were washed up, included: razorbills, puffins and gannets. During my research into this disasturous event, I came across a news article by the Guardian. In this article it stated that within a 24-hour period 140 sea birds were washed up on one beach alone and 130 on another small stretch of coastline, meaning that in 24 hours, 270 birds were washed up on an a small part of the south coast, the majority of them dead. This disastrous event is believed to have come about during the cleaning of a ship's tanks, or the flushing out of the ballast water. The amount of polyisobutene that must have been discharged is actually against the law, as the hazardous effects it has on the marine life are well documented. All we can do is hope that proper laws are put in place after this, considering it is the second time in a year that this has happened, the first being in January/Feburary where 500 sea birds were effected by marine pollution.
Beaches
After reading about the travesty of the dead sea birds being subjected to such pollution in my area, I decided to look further into pollution problems around the south west. One issue that caught my eye was about the increase in polluted water, meaning beaches are becoming overly hazardous in which to bathe. I stumbled upon an article from the 'Marine Conservation Society' about how, due to 2012 having one of the wettest summers on record, it led to increased amounts of sewage in the sea. This resulted in 403 out of 754 beaches in the UK being recommended for bathing, showing a big decrease in beaches with clean, safe water. I also read in this article that a large number of beaches had failed to reach even a minimum European standard.
This all being a causation of relentless rain and flooding, meaning an increase in the amount of bacteria and viruses getting into the sea water. The article stated, and I quote, "This type of pollution can originate from a variety of sources such as agricultural and urban run-off, storm waters, misconnected plumbing, septic tanks and dog faeces." This is extremely dangerous, because when sewage and animal waste get into the water, people bathing in the sea could get ear, nose or throat infections, or even gastroenteritis, also known as stomach flu.
Upon reading this, I decided to look at the beaches in the south west that failed completely on their water safety tests. In looking into, this I found an article from the BBC on the beaches in the south west that failed to meet the minimum water standards. The eight that were listed are as follows:
- Bantham
- Budleigh Salterton
- Exmouth
- Instow
- Mothecombe
- Plymouth Hoe East
- Plymouth Hoe West
- Shaldon
Out of these eight I decided to visit two, the first being Bantham, where I intended to create my scene using fish heads and rubbish I found on the beach. The other being Mothecombe, as I have heard quite disgusting things about the water there. They also are relatively easy for me to get to as they are only a short drive away. I did not want to go to the Plymouth Hoe as I wanted to look outside of cities at the more rural beaches and shorelines.
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