Photographic Communities Research Journal

In our first group meeting, we were tasked with deciding a theme and a location for an exhibition that we must organise and set up ourselves. We found it difficult to think of a theme at first, but after choosing the coastal area for our location, we settled on ocean pollution. We were also inspired by Yuji Hamada’s installation of his Primal Mountain series where he put the prints on rafts, and Wendy Ewald’s installation of Towards a Promised Land where she put her work up on the walls of Margate beach.

After the first group meeting, I went to research photographers that dealt with ocean pollution. I found many people that worked in making sculpture out of plastic they find in the sea, but I was looking for a more abstract look at it. I think that looking at the plastic in a closer, more personal way would make people think more about its impact.

A photographer that thought similarly to me is Evelyn Rydz, with their project Floating Artefacts. In this project, she takes small pieces of plastic that has been worn down over time in the sea, and photographs them with a macro lens. Personally, I think that paying such careful attention to these individual items allows us to think about the size of the impact that we have by carelessly throwing small pieces of unrecyclable plastic away. I think that this magnification of previously uninteresting bits of debris is quite interesting, and I would like to try to achieve a similar idea with an experiment.

Another photographer that I found is Mandy Barker, who has several series on her website that depict ocean waste found in different locations around Earth. One that I particularly liked is called Hong Kong Soup:1826, which contains plastic collected over three years from 30 different beaches in Hong Kong. It also highlights that there is over 1826 tonnes of plastic waste that ends up in landfills every day in Hong Kong. The work attempts to raise awareness about their waste management issue by relating it to the people. I really enjoy the look of this work, as it resembles large shoals of fish, or masses of plastic flowing around underwater in perfect darkness. It achieves a similar effect to Evelyn’s work, in that it brings a closer and more insightful look into each item. I also think that having a huge amount of debris in each image draws attention to the scale of the issue.

We had another group meeting, where it was revealed that we had a potential location. We organised a time to go down and visit. The potential location was at Gosport Ferry Terminal, and we had been contacted by the General Manager. We went down to Portsmouth and met with Clive, and we talked a bit about our project and the exhibition. He said that the theme that we had chosen resonated with him, as he too is conscious of our effect on the ocean and is even looking into having greener boats that output less carbon emissions in the future. My first impression of the terminal itself was a good one, I liked the size and I knew that there would be several members of the public passing through as well, which is perfect for an exhibition.

After we said our goodbyes to Clive, a few of us went to the beach to pick up rubbish from the beach. Even if it was a small effort, every little bit counts. Also, this was more for our personal projects than to help the environment. I helped out because I wanted small bits of ocean worn debris that I could use to produce something to the effect of Evelyn Rydz’s work.

Once I had obtained my plastic, I set about doing my first experiment. I don’t have a macro lens, so I thought an alternative would be to use a flat bed scanner. It was very simple to set up, and I was scanning away in no time. I scanned it at 1200 dpi to achieve a deep level of detail, and hit scan. Unfortunately, the hardware that I have isn’t exactly modern, so the scans weren’t as impressive as I would have liked them to be. There was a lot of detailed, but artefacts from the scan made it look quite messy. The idea was to take something that was disregarded and thoughtlessly thrown away into the ocean and provide a literally detailed look at it. This then gives this previously forgotten plastic a story, because you can see the journey it's been on under the waves. Looking at all of the wear and tear on these items it also brings to attention the fact that they have been eroding slowly, and those eroded pieces are still floating under the ocean, and affecting the life there. Also, I like the fact that they still look like ordinary everyday plastics, because that insinuates that there are still (approximately) 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic just like these still under the ocean. I still think I can get this idea through a little better in another shoot, but this one is a little too simple and literal. I would like to produce something that looks more abstract as well.

There was a workshop that I went to that showed us how to effectively document the exhibition process. I found this exercise very useful, as I learnt a lot of the minute details that needed attention when you want to photograph someone’s work in an exhibition setting. I took notes in this workshop, and I intend to refer back to them when I go to document my own exhibition.

We hadn’t had a group meeting for a while after that, so I started planning my second shoot. I took the ideas that I had collated during my research (both statistical and photographical) and tried a new way of presenting them. I liked the way that Mandy Barker’s work gave the plastic a sense of motion, as if it was all being swept by a current under water. I did some further brainstorming and I came up with a way to get the effect I wanted.

The plan is simple. I will take a 30-litre container that I have and put small pieces of plastic waste in there, and fill it up with water. I can then disturb the water and photograph the flow and all the plastic going with it. This didn’t take too long to set up at all, and I even brought in some external lights to get some dramatic lighting rather than flat, ambient lighting. Also, because of the time of year, it had grown very dark outside very quickly, so the light was necessary in order to see anything at all.

Instead of the rubbish going in exactly as it was, I cut some of it into smaller shapes. I thought that this would allow more things to be seen at once, as the sides of the container aren’t very high. This means that there isn’t much room for different perspectives or for the plastic to go deeper into the container. It also was an aesthetic choice, because I wanted a more abstract way of looking at the plastic. Instead of all of the debris being recognisable, I wanted to make the audience think more about it could be. It highlights the ignorance that a lot of people have on the issue.

Overall, the shoot was very successful, and I ended up with many photographs that I am happy with. I didn’t get what I was looking for initially, but that ended up being in my benefit because I like what came out a lot more than the idea I had going in. The photos (the good ones anyway) are ethereal, and because of the lighting I managed to create quite a dramatic contrast between the light of the water and the dark of the plastic. I especially like some of the top down images, where the base of the container is backlit and the plastic is less visible. You can see bubbles trapped under a transparent sheet of plastic, and the shapes cut out from a crisp packet. This for me creates that sense of movement that I wanted. I attempted different angles to shoot at, I tried from the bottom which didn’t really work since the light just reflected on the base. The sides and the top were the most lucrative to shoot through though.

I ended up choosing two photographs to show at the exhibition. The first image I chose was IMG_8383. I found this to be the most dramatic image, as it is monochrome with an intense light behind it. You can see the aforementioned bubbles under the clear plastic, and miscellaneous debris scattered around the edges. I like this one the most because of the tiny details in the image. The air bubbles that had been trapped at the bottom of the container reminds me of the plastic particles that erode off of waste that sits in the ocean for hundreds of years. I also chose IMG_8399, because it was visually linked to the other photograph, except more colourful and the plastic in the image is a bit more recognisable. There’s a torn plastic bag in the bottom left, crisp packets that have been cut into strips, and clear plastic wrappers at the top right. While this is abstract, I think that finding something recognisable that you can relate to your everyday life by looking closer at this image can provide an insight into the impact you yourself are having on the ocean.

Once my work was printed, I was ready to exhibit. As a group, we decided to print on the same type of paper for consistency. We chose satin paper because if it was too glossy then the lights at the terminal would have reflected in them, making it difficult to document and possibly to see.

When the 25th rolled around, I was picked up by one of my group members and we set off to Gosport Ferry terminal. Clive was very welcoming, and set us up with two tables. He allocated us an area, and we began setting up. We set the tables up in a ‘v’ shape and set up our work.

For everyone’s prints, we wrapped bits of green polyester twine around pipes and structural beams to create a line that we could hang them off using hooks and bulldog clips. This (alongside the table) created a DIY aesthetic that worked quite well with the surroundings.

The placement of the prints was an issue for us however, as there were huge windows behind them, creating a strong backlight which made it fairly difficult to document the prints well. It also made the prints a lot darker in person, as the light from outside was stronger than the ambient light on the inside.

We unfortunately didn’t get many people to interact with our work. We were inviting people to take a look around, and Owen’s project was interactive as well, but no one was looking around at all. We think that this was mostly due to where Clive put us, because people coming off of the ferry aren’t going to wait, they want to get out of there as soon as possible. If we were in the much larger waiting area, we would have got more people coming to look around. However, we did get a few people to talk to us.

Clive also introduced us to the head of the MCA (Maritime and Coastguard Agency), who told us about his concerns about ocean pollution and how people abandon fiberglass bottom boats, which sit there forever.

Our work was also perused by two Portsmouth students recruited by Extinction Rebellion, which is a protest group that are a “nonviolent rebellion against the governments of the world for climate and ecological justice”. They were interested in our work, and they told us a bit about themselves and their cause.

At some point, a group mate and I went out to the immediate area and started to put out some posters that we had made for the exhibition. We only had a few so we didn’t go too far, but we did talk to a few people about it and tell them about our idea.

All throughout this exhibition, I was attempting to document it. As I mentioned before, it was fairly difficult to get a good temperature and white balance right out of the gate because of the odd lighting conditions. However, as the afternoon went on, the sky inevitably got darker and darker, making the indoor lights appear stronger. I got a few photographs that were suitable to show, but I think that if I had edited them afterwards then I could have attempted to save them.

After a while, we re-arranged our entire setup because we weren’t very visible. The people from Extinction Rebellion even said that they didn’t know that the prints up on the string were even there. We moved one of the strings further up, and then closed the gap between the wall and the table with the other.

This was definitely more effective, and it looked a lot better than what we had before. We got more people to look at the work this way. Even if they were side glances while walking forward.

Overall, this exhibition went very well. It was nice and easy to set up, and it looked great as well. We worked very well as a team, as we were effective at idea creation, location scouting, and communication.

If we were to do this again, we would’ve pushed for the bigger side of the terminal with people waiting in it, as we would’ve got more people to view and interact with the work that way.