A slow motion apocalypse in progress:

Here is some more of the The Goodness. This week The Goodness is brought to you from a photographer named Chris Jordan. To my knowledge, the following body of photography is one of the most poignant bodies of work in contemporary American times. Viewing Chris Jordan’s work and reflecting on it should be a prerequisite to getting out of bed in the morning. We are all a part of this…

The following imagery comes from a series titled Running the Numbers.

Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. Depicts 28,000 42-gallon barrels, the amount of oil consumed in the United States every two minutes.

Depicts 320,000 light bulbs, equal to the number of kilowatt-hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage (inefficient wiring, computers in sleep mode, etc.).

Depicts 410,000 paper cups, equal to the number of disposable hot-beverage paper cups used in the US every fifteen minutes.

Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds.

Chris Jordan uses digital photography and software to composite imagery that allows us to view the actual amount of matter that we are using, disposing or wasting. This would be impossible to view otherwise because there is no place in the world that could hold all of the waste. Like I said earlier, this body of work is extremely poignant. The Photographs are amazing to look at yet disturbing to think about. This is powerful combination of visual aesthetic, technique and concept and in my opinion is one of the greatest bodies of photography of the 21^st Century.

I do however have one problem with Chris Jordan. I recently heard him lecture and he is a great presenter of his work and the issues at hand yet he gave no solutions. He responded to a question regarding the solution by saying that he only wants people to reflect on the work and to think about the problem.

We are all intelligent people but simplifying a solution seems necessary. Promote Nalgene or SIGG water bottles when you talk about plastic bottle usage and then give numbers of how many plastic bottles will be saved if 100,000 American People use those types of containers. Give specific numbers saying how much gas 1 person will save each day if they bike to the store or to work and then find the number of oil cans that will not be used the following year if 10,000 Americans do this. Make us realize what we are doing and provide alternatives.

I apologize if this blog was a bit depressing and didn’t go well with your omelet but in the words of Chris Jordan, “in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.”