Chris Jordon, ‘Midway, Message from the Gyre’ photographs of the plastic eaten by (and killing) albatross and their chicks from the Pacific Ocean garbage patch. (via Sean Bonner)
“These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.
To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.”
See also: The photographic ethics used in the making of the images (no plastic was added or rearranged)
Also also: the photographic gear being used
Must see: a short video segment filmed in Midway called ‘Message in the Waves’ about the albatross and the plastic, watch to the end for a stunning moment when all the plastic bits (lighters, toys, toothbrushes, printer cartridges) are laid out on an otherwise idyllic tropical beach.
Previously from Chris Jordan: ‘Running the Numbers’, where he visualized consumption and waste by creating images with our detritus, such as ‘Sans Seurat’ a recreation of Seurat’s ‘Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’ made from images of 106,000 soda cans, the amount Americans use every 30 seconds.