More than a Thousand Words – Using Digital Photos for Social Statements

When I have a chance I love to watch the Colbert Report on Comedy Central and I caught a segment on the show last week that I found particularly interesting and wanted to share with everyone.

The clip below is Steven Colbert’s interview with Chris Jordan. Jordan is a photographer focused on using photography to demonstrate the environmental impact of the American consumer. The point of my blog is not to necessarily make any sort of social statement, but rather the interview and Jordan’s work really highlighted for me the power of photos, especially in the context of making a social statement. Whether you agree with Jordan’s belief that our consumption is a “slow-motion apocalypse”, it is hard to argue that his photography brings to light something that is otherwise very difficult to grasp in our day-to-day lives. In his own words, Jordan explains his work:

Exploring around our country’s shipping ports and industrial yards, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed to view like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon, I find evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress. I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.

The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.

As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.

The video is well worth the 6 minute viewing time, as is typical for Colbert’s interviews, the main message is not lost in the humor.

For more on Chris Jordan visit: http://www.chrisjordan.com/

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Social Web, digital photography, photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.