Chris Jordan’s images of trash and the detritus of consumption are disturbing, but also strangely optimistic. The issues around climate change are complex and diffuse–it’s hard to see how any one person’s behavior can have a tangible effect. But garbage…it’s easy to use less or to compost, to feel the lighter rubbish bin and know that your efforts are manageable.

Jordan’s latest work is profoundly visceral. He’s been documenting the effects of our plastic waste near the Pacific gyre, which led him to Midway Island, where he found the carcasses of albatross chicks who’d died of trash consumption. Words aren’t necessary–when you see a decomposing bird, its stomach contents exposed to the world, and those contents are syringes and plastic bottle tops, it strikes you in the gut what a mess we’ve made of the place and how sad that we’ve needlessly affected all these other creatures, too.

Jordan’s other work drives home the scale of our consumption. But these post-mortem still lifes are intimate and personal–that could be my Diet Coke top, after all–and when you see it at that level, you know you can make a difference.

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Watch the video of his Midway project.

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Also, you really need to see more of Jordan’s photography at his site. And if you’re feeling generous, buy a signed copy of his book, Running the Numbers, and support his work. I just did.

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Tagged as: environment