Anthropocene is the effect that mankind has had on the natural world. This has only come about in the past few centuries since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and has exponentially become a global problem. Anthropocene is such a massive problem that it is becoming the name for the era that we are living in.

This is a good topic for photography, mostly because it is everywhere, and a clear message can be brought forward, for example, against global warming. There are 4 major signs of anthropocene; agriculture, urbanisation, deforestation and pollution. Each of these are the root causes of the major problems mankind faces today.

Agriculture

Agriculture is a major part of modern society. It is the core beginning of all the raw materials and food that are used and eaten by the majority of the population. Because agriculture plays such a vital part, it has become one of the biggest industries in the whole world, and is presently valued at over $14 trillion. This includes livestock, vegetables, fruits, and mining minerals. Agriculture accounts for 10% of emissions in the US alone, and it is everywhere. Fields and mines spread for miles to maximise capitalisation. This means that an incredible amount of hard work would have been needed to remove any trees or plants that were there previously. Additionally, heavy machinery is used in every farming and mining process today, which further rises the amount of carbon emissions produced. Overall, agriculture is a very major factor in anthropocene, and accounts for a large part of climate change and global warming.

Deforestation

Along with agriculture, deforestation plays a major role in modern society. It is needed to make space for new infrastructure and even more agriculture and fields. However, lots of deforestation means lots of work, and on a large scale deforestation companies take shortcuts. Rather than individually cutting down trees and slowly moving habitats away from the area through various safe and careful methods, they burn the forest down. This causes massive devastation for anything alive in the area, especially in the Amazon rainforest where the picture above was taken. Additionally, the smoke produced from this process increases the carbon emissions released. After the forest is burnt, heavy machinery is also used to clear the debris, which further increases the net carbon emissions. Every minute, over 2,000 trees are cut down or burnt, which accounts for approximately 10 acres.

Urbanisation

Since the late 18th century, large cities have become the centre for all capitalist operation. Cities like London in England grew massively during the industrial revolution. This is because the cities are essentially where all the money is, and since mankind has become exponentially more and more capitalist and money hungry, these cities have and will continue to grow exponentially. Lots of work needs to go into these extremely large scale societies. Land potentially needs to be deforested, agriculture is needed to sufficiently supply the population, and an unimaginable amount of work is put in to create the infrastructure and buildings. All of this needs lots of heavy machinery to be done, including the transport of goods and food into the city. And much more than this is needed to create large scale cities. This takes lots of time. The largest cities in our society today were originally created hundreds of years ago, meaning that carbon emissions have continued to rapidly increase. All of this has accumulated, and cities have become the largest contributor to all carbon emissions globally. Cities are responsible for over 70% of all carbon emissions.

Pollution

All of the resources and materials that go into the city then come back out of it as waste. This means that everything that is packaged, and also all of the emissions from fuels like petrol is released into the natural world, and it ends up all over the globe. This is mostly apparent with plastics in the ocean. Now, it is nearly impossible to find a fish that doesn’t contain microplastics. There is also an island named “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” which is entirely made of plastic floating in the ocean. It is 1,600,000km². For comparison, England is 130,000km². This is killing hundreds of thousands of marine wildlife yearly; in the photo above you can see thousands of fish that have died because of the changes of the conditions due to pollution in the ocean. It is also devastating the coral reefs, which are the plants of the ocean. The world has lost 14% of its coral reefs in the last 10 years. And pollution doesn’t only contribute to the water.

In fact, all of the 4 major signs of anthropocene are all of the major contributers to the creation of greenhouse gases. With more and more of these atmosphere destroying gases floating around, the Earth is getting warmer and warmer, and mankind is slowly but surely killing life on Earth. We have no idea how problematic we have become to Earth’s natural cycles that are responsible for life’s existence.

Zed Nelson

Zed Nelson is a London based photographer who has explored a plethora of photographical concepts, such as portraiture and commercial work. Nelson is also known for his long-term photographical observations of society.

This specific exhibition, aptly named “The Anthropocene Illusion”, focuses on the false nature of the modern capitalist society. In this photo, we can see an arched entrance with drawings of animals carved into the walls and “AFRICA” written on the same side. Next to it, we see a group of three people, one in an electric wheelchair. From this information, it is clear to the viewer that these people are in a zoo.

On its own, the concept of a zoo is very anthropocene. It is essentially people creating an incredibly fake natural environment for animals who have been born into these facilities, and then hiding behind the statement of “conservation for endangered species”, just so that they can lie to tourists and pretend that these animals are wild, when truthfully the animals are just prisoners chambered from their own true freedom. This is all done just so that the people who created the zoo can make money from giving tourists the false experience of seeing a “wild animal”.

For this photo, it is clear that Zed Nelson went to a real zoo and captured exactly what he saw. The whole exhibition is focused on the relationship between mankind and nature, and the best way to capture this is with real world examples. The photos from “The Anthropocene Illusion” all follow this rule, meaning that every photo uses sunlight to light the photo. The camera settings for this specific photo are most likely; a low ISO, (from 100-400) to account for the sensitive sunlight, a small aperture (between f11 or f22) because everything is in focus and the photo has a medium depth of field, and a fast shutter speed (from 1/250 to 1/1000 sec).

This photo is another by Zed Nelson that is also part of “The Anthropocene Illusion” exhibition. It demonstrates perfectly how mankind has faked a reality in its venture for maximum capitalisation. In the photo, we see a lonely Chimpanzee sat on a rock against a painted wall. The painting depicts a paradise of nature, tall thick green trees towering over bushes of infinite unknown species, tropical plants emerging from the nutritious soil, and still lake water powering the life around it. However there is no life around, it is merely a fabricated world that encircles the small world that this Chimpanzee has lived its whole life in. It is all fabricated. The Chimpanzee looks exhausted, his arm hangs weakly over the rock, and chippings from the wall appear like the smoke from a cigarette. This creates the illusion that the Chimp is smoking a cigarette, which further cements the anthropocene theme as the cigarette industry is another huge capitalist movement where the product is basically an extremely addictive and expensive cancer causer which over 20% of the population consume religiously. What this photo doesn’t capture is the thousands of tourists who pay a small fee to the zoo to see the Chimp “in its natural habitat” behind the glass and trapped inside a prison. This photo encapsulates exactly how false the capitalist society has become, to the point where we strip wild animals of their freedom and trap them between the eyes of glass and concrete walls decorated with a false world.

Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer with over 40 years of experience. This quote from his website vividly explains his exploration of the Anthropocene world – “His imagery explores the collective impact we as a species are having on the surface of the planet — an inspection of the human systems we’ve imposed onto natural landscapes.”-www.edwardburtynsky.com.

In Burtynsky’s depictions of landscapes, he often chooses to look down at his subjects from a helicopter. This angle offers a completely different perspective of the devastation and mass destruction that goes on in the world. Take this photo for example, taken above the Niger Delta river in Nigeria. It captures the aftermath of decades worth of ecological harm caused by the greed of Nigerian politicians who are responsible for the millions of barrels of raw crude oil that has been dumped into the Niger Delta. The green river flows with infinite toxins from the middle of the frame, and branches out like a tree as if it breathes the life of dead wood. Surrounding it is a baron wasteland, torn from the lively greens and awe-inspiring wildlife that once sat above, now holding the carcass of what remains. A stretch of road tears through the graveyard with no care for the world around it. The road demonstrates a visual perspective of how mankind reacts to the anthropocene problems, the majority of us simply see it and drive on by, not caring for the atrocities that we inflict. But the reason we do that is because a sole person is not capable of stopping this mass destruction, and that is what Edward Burtynsky understands. He understands that the only thing he can do is visualise the destruction through his lens, and create a world where the viewer can understand and care for what is happening to the Earth.

Ideas

For my anthropocene project, I had a few ideas. Firstly, I had the idea to study some trees in Jersey that are surrounded by fields, relating to the works of Edward Burtynsky. This is because I found out that over 50% of Jerseys land is taken up by farmland, meaning that many trees, plants and habitats have been destroyed to create room for the farmland. My idea was to take photos of the old trees that have been left alone in the middle of the baron fields, to demonstrate the lone survivors of human destruction, and potentially the result of our consistent destruction to our planet due to global warming. However, I found that my photos weren’t as persuasive or obvious to the anthropocene theme, so I scrapped the idea and moved on.

I also had the idea to do a typology of polluting items slowly crumbling as the photos went down. I thought of doing this with a plastic bag, or a crisp packet. Ultimately, I settled on doing it with a plastic bottle, as they are very common and recognisable, and they crumple up very nicely.

Photoshoot

For this photoshoot, I used a black background to isolate the water bottles, and placed them on a platform where marked the positioning and direction of the bottles. For the lighting, I used a key light from 45 degrees to the right of the bottle, and a fill light from 45 degrees to the left, so that the lighting was completely balanced. I also made sure to avoid any massive light reflections on the bottles.

From there, I chose a few plastic bottles to work with. Then, I took a photo of each standing upright with no damage, and progressively crumpled the bottle. I did this with all of them, experimenting with the rotation of the water bottle. Ultimately, this is the finished project.

I am fairly happy with how the project turned out. It is exactly the idea I had in mind and it obviously sends the message that these plastic bottles do not break down or biodegrade. They are permanent and abundant in todays world, mostly neglected at the sides of roads, piled up in ugly landfills or endlessly floating and polluting the ocean.

In hindsight, I now think it would have looked better if I had removed the platform at the bottom of the images to isolate the bottles in the frame, as the height of the platform varies between the images and makes the project look a little bit messy. I also think I should have added a wider variety of brands to also give the message that the plastic bottle companies and their greed for money is the driving force to this crisis, and how the ignorance and selfishness of mankind perpetuates the cycle that plastic follows, from the top of the piece when the bottle is purchased and new, to the bottom where the bottle is neglected.