Friday, May 11, 2007

Photographer Chris Jordan captures consumerism


“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.”

These words were spoken by photographer Chris Jordan, which I found here.

Perhaps you, like I, have seen some of Chris’ photos but didn’t know who took them. On my most recent trip to help with my 3 month old grandchildren, my daugher-in-law Chrisy showed me an article about Chris Jordan in Common Ground magazine. Titled Statistics You Can See...And Feel, it described Jordan as a former corporate lawyer until 2003, now a photographer who is helping “people visually know the actual (and frightening) quantities of stuff consumed in America.”

At ChrisJordan.com, there are three categories for his online photos: “Running the Numbers,” “Intolerable Beauty,” and “In Katrina’s Wake.”

The photo, in the "Running the Numbers" series, represents the 426,000 cell phones retired in the U.S. every day.

I hope you’ll go to ChrisJordan.com and spend a little time looking at all of his photos. It’s an amazing experience, especially because we all, one way or another, are contributing to the subject matter of Jordan’s photos.

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