An Early Morning
Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection?
—B. F. Skinner
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Pollution is an interesting topic, don’t you think? With all the environmental talk these days having turned to the matter of global warming, we have to wonder whether anyone is paying attention to actual pollution anymore. What tops that, though, at least in my heavily weighted opinion, is that we tend to think of pollution as an outdoor thing when indoor pollution is every bit as deadly. No, I’m not kidding. Your gas is shortening people’s lives, man. You need to lay off the burritos.
According to figures released by The Lancet, a respected medical journal, indoor pollution is just as much a contributor to death, 2.9 million people, as is outdoor pollution. Put the two together, and pollution suddenly jumps up to the second leading cause of death in the world, even more than smoking. No matter where we turn, there is so very little fresh air left on the planet it’s a wonder we are still breathing at all. The oxygen we need to survive is running preciously thin and every time you open your mouth you are putting someone else in danger. There, how does that make you feel? Not good, huh?
And just why do we have so much indoor pollution? Someone forgot to crack a window. Seriously. Inadequate ventilation is responsible for 53% of indoor pollution. I know researchers will try to say that it is poor ventilation in factories that are the most threatening to the greatest number of people, especially in developing nations where workplace regulations about air quality are non-existent. But something tells me those researchers would have a different opinion if they’ve ever been hotboxed in a car with three teenage boys who just stopped at Taco Bell®™. Noxious fumes capable of peeling paint come out of the human posterior. Don’t try telling me that stuff isn’t shortening all our lives.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]In an ultimate display of human stupidity, we have chosen for years to completely ignore the matter of pollution. We know it’s there. We know we’re causing it. But the people who control the money are afraid if we do things to clean up this incredible mess we’ve created that it might eat into their over-inflated bottom line. The late (thankfully) President Ronald Reagan tried blaming nature itself for causing the majority of air contaminants. While technically that charge is true, there is one big difference between natural contaminants and manufactured contaminants: nature cleans up its own damn mess, humans don’t.
Yeah, that’s right; the rebellious act of not wanting to clean our rooms as children has spread to the whole damn planet. Wherever we go, we make a mess and we don’t want to clean it up. In a way, the fact that our pollution is killing us is probably just reward for being the colossal brats that we are. One might even go so far as to say that choking on our over-industrialization is nature’s way of attempting to eliminate the problem. We ruin the air we breathe, we die, the air becomes clean again. Isn’t that the way nature works?
Of course, it’s the poor who are most likely to die from the effects of pollution, and the poor don’t have a voice in the political decisions that have turned our planet, indoors and out, into a giant cesspool of stinking corporate flatulence. Those who have the money for expensive air purification systems don’t worry about the health of those who don’t. The same jackasses who won’t roll down a window in the car are laughing about hotboxing the entire planet.
So here’s a message from the planet to humanity: Hey people, you stink. Clean up your shit or leave. And cut back on the burritos. Enjoy the picture. Thanks, Earth. [/one_half_last]
Waste Not
Leave A Tender Moment (2010)
“I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being–forgive me–rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I hate waste. I don’t hate trash, mind you. There are things which, once expired, definitely require disposal. Waste, though, the deliberate misuse or ruination of something still usable, angers me. I hate wasting time, because there’s no guarantee that there is any more of it coming. I hate wasting of resources, especially those purchased with someone else’s funds under the expectation they would be managed efficiently. I loathe large, opulent displays of wealth wasted in the face of massive poverty.
As much as anything, I hate wasted food. I had to throw away a package of bagels today because moisture had gotten into the package and caused them to mold. Five perfectly good bagels gone because care wasn’t taken in preserving them properly. Those emotions crop up a lot and I’ll blame my mother in part for the constant reminder that there are always starving children somewhere. But then, my own brushes with poverty and hunger are an even more recent reminder of just how valuable a single bagel is to someone who hasn’t eaten all day.
The words “waste not, want not” are etched into my brain so strongly that almost any level of waste I observe stirs a negative emotion. Seeing massive amounts of food in a restaurant dumpster makes me momentarily swear off dining out. Observing whole rivers of polluted water makes me curse industrialization. Seeing the Coke lot the day after a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway makes me detest racing fans everywhere. Even this past weekend I was severely dismayed to look at the street after the Pride Parade and see it not merely cluttered but severely trashed with smashed candy and other litter.
We sadly live in a world where waste of every kind is far too common, far too excessive, and leaves far too large a footprint. Getting anyone to care is almost impossible.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Waste in photography fares no better and is one of the reasons for focusing on missed imagery this week. There are some shoots where the amount of genuinely strong imagery we capture exceeds the limits of reasonable display. I prefer to keep presentations between seven and ten images, since that is pretty much the sweet spot for the average person’s attention span. If we have a really strong set, I might go up to twenty. Beyond that, though, people stop looking. Their eyes glaze over as though you’ve just brought them a fourth serving of parmesan chicken, to which their bodies groaned in despair. No matter how strong the images are, beyond a certain point they’re just waste.
Perhaps the worst, though, is seeing wasted talent. Now, I have to be very careful here. I know there are some people whose talents are multiple and for reasons of sanity they are forced to choose; focusing on one or two while letting others lie dormant. I have sympathy for those people. What bothers me is someone who can clearly do well, either in front or behind a camera, and yet lets someone who fails to understand the artistry of either talk them into doing something far less creative, far more temporary, and far less fulfilling. I come into contact with those people sometimes multiple times a day and when I see them not doing what they could clearly do so well I want to cry.
Today’s picture is one from a set of gems that could easily fill a very large wall. I won’t attempt to over-analyze why this particular combination worked; the models didn’t have an especially intimate relationship, in fact they giggled through the first several minutes of shooting. Everything just clicked and the number of frames worth saving far exceeds what should be displayed in a single exhibition. So, today’s #POTD is an example in preventing waste.
Still, I must ask you to consider: what are you wasting?[/one_half_last]
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