Thousands of Dead Birds and Chris Jordan's photography

Since I've heard about the terrible news of the thousands of black birds found dead in Arkansas on New Year's day, I can't help thinking of Chris Jordan's Midway Atoll photographic project

All photographs (c) Chris Jordan.

Per Jordan's website:

"These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September, 2009, 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.".

I keep being appalled by what our consumer society has  been doing to this planet.. That doesn't come without contradictions (the occasional "need" to get more "stuff" for example..) but I have become so much more aware and responsible thanks to projects like Jordan's (found via Alabama Chanin's blog by the way,  one of my favorite and most inspiring blogs but that will be the subject of a whole other post..), or films like the haunting 2006 Our Daily Bread which I cannot recommend enough (available here).

I hope this year will bring awareness to more people and that we all take an active role in preserving the planet.

Happy Friday all (sorry, that was a bit gloomy..)