The concept of my concentration is environmental pollution and how humans affect and harm the environment with their actions (the human footprint). Pollution has always been a problem, and the effects are only becoming more severe. I conveyed that our environment impacts us heavily, which is why we need to protect it. This will allow both, humans and nature, to flourish together. My work is inspired by Quoc Nguyen Linh Vinh’s environmental photos, because he highlights devastation in disasters.

It is humanity’s responsibility to control our damaging habits and I showed pollution in a more devastating light in order to get people to care as much as I do about helping the environment. I utilize the medium of digital photography and photoshop compositing to show the negative impacts that we place our environment. Moreover, I apply it to a human subject, so that viewers can understand how absurd it is to continue the disgusting, wasteful habits that humans possess. The unifying symbol throughout my concentration is the female subject, who is symbolic of humanity as a whole. Everything that occurs to her, is implicitly reflected on humanity as a result of our treatment of the environment. For instance, in slide 7, the subject lays, dead, upon a cut down tree, symbolizing the effects of deforestation. In slide 11, I photographed the same subject under harsh lighting, and she gripped a bloody rose, symbolizing humanity’s guilt. Furthermore, I incorporated symmetry into slide 5 in order to highlight the difference between polluted and drinkable water. In slide 12, I turned cigarettes into factory chimneys, employing the rule of odds in addition to formal balance to show the effects of pollution on our air. My strategy is to focus on what will happen to humanity, in hopes of scaring people into caring.