After researching the amazing collective work done by Angela Haseltine Pozzi, her team and the local community, I am ready to plan my own symbolic response to this pollution issue. I love this idea using art, made of recycled pollution, to spread awareness and how it is already being used as a successful proactive tool. However, instead of 3D sculptures, like the ones put together by the ‘Washed Ashore Project’ above, I will be creating 2D art pieces laid out and brought to life through my use of composition, angles and lighting. Because I already had the loose original plan to do this whilst still completing some of my previous shoots (when completing my beach cleans) I kept all the pieces of fishing rope and bottle caps I could find to later transform into emotive art.

I have decided to use these two specific materials one, because of their effect on the environment and marine life, and two, because I didn’t want to over-complicate my images and make the message too difficult to see. The reason fishing rope and netting are such a huge problem for our eco-system is, not only does it take at least 600 years to degrade, more than 260 animal species worldwide have suffered and died from being entangled in or consuming the material. The bottle caps, however, will be symbols of every plastic bottle that were discarded with them. Bottles used to package water take between 400 and 1,000 years to bio-degrade and if incinerated, they produce toxic fumes. It is estimated that over 80% of all single-use water bottles used in the U.S. simply become ‘litter’. As well as this it is estimated that 14% of all litter comes from beverage containers when caps and labels are considered, the number is considerably higher. In the contact sheets below I have depicted a few of my initial designs on how to put these materials together along with some other artist inspirations…My plan of action for this next shoot is to use the designs I have drawn out above, a ‘home studio’ and interesting compositions to capture this pollution issue in a colourful, eye-catching and insightful way. To complete this shoot I will be using the materials I have already collected during my previous beach clean ups, black fabric as the background and a mixture of artificial and natural light. My goal is to produce emotive outcomes portraying marine life and ocean scenes by only using the pollution we cover it in. I have decided to use a fish as the subject for this shoot because, much like with the sculptures from ‘Washed Ashore’, I want to put across that it’s the sea life that is most affected by pollution. The fish is the most common creature found in the sea, hence why I will be using to symbolise my message about marine life. To create fine details and make the subject stand out more I will also be using salt as an ocean themed artistic material. For the waves design, I am aiming to show that this problem is very condensed and will eventually effect ‘every wave in the sea’. I love the examples I have managed to find and present for inspiration on how to create this kind of inspiring art. When the element of photography is added to capture the subject properly, I think this idea will produce some really nice emotive outcomes.