Austin Birch

Ms. Barry

Integrative Seminar

March 31, 2017

“When one tugs on a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

This is a quote from John Muir, who is known as the father of the national parks, and founded

the Sierra Club. This quote is something that has not been realized my many for thousands of

years. The entirety of nature is interconnected, so when one thing happens, no matter how

small, it has the potential to change the way the whole of the ecosystem. A butterfly flapping

its wings in Ecuador could theoretically cause a larger current in the Pacific Ocean. More

dangerously, the addition of carbon dioxide from humans into the atmosphere could cause an

unbalance in greenhouse gases, creating climate to change at a faster rate than life can adapt.

Human impacts on the environment is an issue that must be solved now in order to save the

unprecedented decrease in species. I believe that the best way to inspire people to change is

to take photographs of the natural world that we live in that triggers emotion in the soul of the

viewer. Here are four of the artists that have inspired me the most.

Joey Long

First, I will be focusing on Joey Long’s trip to Varanasi, India where his goal was to show

a very small portion of world, and one who many will never see or even hear of. This project

was called “Holy Men” and he documented people that have dedicated their lives to spiritual

liberation and living their realities with only their minds and no material possessions. These

people are called Sadhus, which translates to holy person.

To begin, Long spent his entire first day in Varanasi exploring the city and meeting

people so that it would be easier for the local holy men to open up for his photographs.

Building relationships and connections is the only way to get people to open up to you.

Long said that this man was one of the most interesting people he had ever

photographed. Maghesh was formerly a well-paid engineer, but felt that something was

missing in his life. This inspired him to drop all of his worldly possessions in order to seek for

spiritual liberation. He decided to drop everything and move to Varanasi without a single rupee

in his pocket. After being an Aghori, a clan within the Sadhus, for 10 years, he has adopted

rituals that the majority of the population would all see as barbaric. He meditates on human

corpses and eats human flesh as part of a sacred ritual. He keeps a human skull as a reminder

that life is temporary.

Baba Vijay Nund is a Sadhu that Long photographed when he was 16 years old, and it is

the only picture of the Sadhus that Long liked after going there twice. When He returned

home, Long sent him a 4x6 copy of the photo. When Long and Nund crossed paths during this

third journey to Varanasi, Nund showed Long something remarkable. He reached into his bag

and pulled out the old photograph. Because Sadhus have nearly no possessions, the

relationship that was built between the two showed how much of a connection photography

can make between people that live on opposite sides of the world. In Long’s return, he was

able to capture more photos of Nund that he otherwise wouldn’t have been able to if he hadn’t

made the prior connection.

Most of the people that he photographed, including this man named Lal Baba have been

living the same way as their ancestors did thousands of years ago. Long’s intention was to

blend the modern techniques of photography and the ancient lives and rituals of these people

to create images that not only connect people, but also ways of life. Lal Baba’s hair has not

been cut in over forty years, and is several meters in length. His dreadlocks, or jatas in Hindi,

represent his life dedicated to spirituality.

This is a boy in a school where he is training to become a Brahmin priest. He learns and

practices meditation, breathing patterns, and about Hinduism. The school also taught that

giving off a big, evil sounding laugh would release the tensions in the body and would prepare

one for meditation. There was one day when Long was photographing this school and as soon

as the students started their laughing, a massive thunder and lightning storm started. This is

one of Long’s favorite and most vivid memories of the trip. His goal in photographing these

students was to not show them doing something like meditation or anything religious, but he

intended to show who they are as individuals and as a community. If the right technique goes

into producing a photograph, there can be both beauty in what the subject may be doing, but it

also creates a connection by showing the viewer who they are.

Banksy

Banksy is a street artist from London who uses his art to show what’s wrong with world

politics and ways of thinking and living.

This is Banksy’s most famous and iconic piece of art, and is found in Jerusalem. It is

possibly even the most well-known visual that depicts the idea of pacifism and anti-war. It

portrays a young man throwing a bouquet of flowers as part of a protest. Banksy is a pacifist, so

this could also be a reaction the problems in the Middle East. The throwing of the flowers

illustrates that although the protesters seem as if they are looking for violence, they are simply

trying to fight with peace. Another theory is that it was a response to the attack on a gay parade

in 2005. The colorful flowers in contrast to the black and white man alludes to his support of

gay rights.

This is also an anti-war piece by Banksy, but shows the soldiers rather than protesters

who aren’t fighting. He is trying to say that with war, there cannot be peace. The simple irony

of war is that people are often killing others so that there can be peace in the world, but peace

cannot exist when there are thousands or even millions of people dying. In an interview with

Dana Sohr, he said that photographs of war have changed people’s views more than anything

else. This made me think of the media during the Vietnam war. It was the first televised war,

and the photography showed people how terrible war really is, and how war only stops peace,

as shown in this street art.

Shown here is a graffitied child at a sewing machine with Union Jack flags pinned to the

wall and connecting the sewing machine. This was a protest to sweatshops that were used to

manufacture memorabilia for the 2012 London Olympics. Many people purchasing the items

for sale during the Olympics likely had no idea that they were being made very cheaply in

sweatshops. Banksy’s goal for this was to bring attention the awfulness of the industry.

Something like this will not stop the use of large businesses using sweatshops, but it could

remind people to pay attention to what they are buying to help lower the number and use of

sweatshops.

A man spray painting a wall covered in ancient cave drawings. This is how simple it is to

show that humans are destroying the history that is so much a part of each and every one of us.

The message here is that we are getting rid of the ancient beauty in the world just so that we

can make something new out of it. However, this is not only happening with art, but also with

nature. Similar to the piece shown, people are constantly destroying the environment in order

to create buildings and factories. Although what is being built may seem like improvements,

we are actually going backwards by destroying the earth and depleting the natural resources.

While the main message of this is clear, the underlying point is just as, if not more important.

JR

An artist from France did a project in which he took close up photos of peoples’

animated faces and put massive prints up on walls to show the differences their expressions.

What he realized during this project was the pure joy and happiness that it brought to the

viewers. One of JR’s main goals is to build a relationship between himself and the people

across the world. When he does these massive pastes in cities, he leaves right after he is

finished. The reason for this is so that the media comes into the city to talk to the people about

what happened. This creates a bridge between the media and the locals who often get

overlooked in the media.

As part of the project, JR did a segment called “Women are Heroes” in many different

countries throughout the world. This particular one is in Cambodia. The juxtaposition of the

expressive face with the worn-down building and debris not only shows the emotion of

somebody that lives there, but offers a happy and positive vibe to what appears to be a

stressful and problematic place to be. JR especially wanted to put up pictures of women in

countries like Cambodia because they have limited education and are not typically aware of

their human and legal rights.

This project was called “Face to Face”. JR traveled to the Middle East with one of his

friends during the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. He began to take pictures of people from the

different areas who have the same job. He would then paste them right next to each other.

People frequently asked him what he was doing, and when he told them, people were often

shocked that he would have the nerve to paste a photo of the enemy in the city. After a few

seconds of looking at it, JR would ask the people to tell him who was from Palestine and who

was from Israel. Almost nobody could tell the difference. This is a perfect way to show that it

does not matter what we look like. So many people are judged based on their appearances, but

JR wanted to prove that you know nothing about people until you get to know them.

When JR went to Kibera, Kenya, he noticed a problem with the houses that people were

living in. The roofs were not keeping the water out of the buildings. This is when JR realized

that art could be more than a way to connect people. His art became useful to the people living

there. The roofs are made from vinyl, which helps keep out the rain. When he went back to

visit, he noticed that a piece of one of the eyes was missing. When he asked what happened,

he was told that the person living there moved, and always wanted it to be a part of their life.

Something that one of locals there said was that when you look down at Kibera, the city looks

back at you.

In the streets of India, JR had legal trouble while trying to paste people’s portraits.

Instead, he just pasted massive pieces of white. People asked what he was doing, and when he

told them “art” they were confused. They wondered how white paper could be art. Little did

they know that parts of the paper were sticky. With all of the dust that gets kicked up in the

streets of India, it would attach to the paper and slowly reveal the image. The portrait is not

only a part of the community because it is someone’s eyes who lives there, but because the

community helped print the photo in a sense.

Nick Nichols

Nick Nichols, a photojournalist, traveled to Zakouma National Park in Chad where he

documented the native wildlife.

When Nichols got to Chad, he set what are called camera traps. Camera traps are

triggered when animals walk across the infrared light that it gives off. This particular one shows

a crocodile’s tail with droplets of water falling of the end. The photo has outstanding

composition and detail considering that it wasn’t actually a person who took it. One of the

reasons that this picture is so fantastic is because of the sense of mystery that it has. It makes

you wonder what else might be there and what it’s like to actually be there in person. The trip

was originally supposed to be merely a documentation of the wildlife in the area. However,

when Nichols realized what was happening one the largest herd of elephants on the planet that

was there, he had to make it core of his project.

This is the matriarch of the herd, who Nichols named Annie. They collared her so that

she would be able to be tracked and they would know where the herd was. The herd was safe

inside park boundaries thanks to the dedicated park rangers. During the annual rain, the herd

would leave the park, and become threatened by poachers hunting for their ivory. When the

herd was outside of the safety of the park, the radio tracker showed that the elephant had

stopped moving.

Annie and twenty additional members of her herd had been killed by poachers.

Something as small as ivory is what caused these poachers to kill the elephants. Over 100,000

elephants have been killed for their ivory in the past three years. In an interview with Ken

Conger, he said that with wildlife photography, the viewer sees the animal in a way that

connects the two and almost builds a relationship. This image perfectly encapsules that idea.

One can’t help but feel a knot in their stomach after seeing a crime like this, and makes people

want to do something about it.

The park rangers were able to get the ivory before the poacher could thanks to the GPS

collar that was put on Annie. Committed park rangers like these are great for helping restore

the environment, but it must be something that everybody is willing to contribute to. Things as

simple as trying to use less electricity, replacing a few meals per week with options that didn’t

harm any animals, recycling as much as possible, and even going out into nature and

connecting with it can all lead to big changes.

Each of these artists has had a large impact not only on my own photography, but on

how I view the world. Joey Long has a special way of building relationships with people that I

strive to incorporate into my photos and into my life. The relationships that he is able to build

lets the subjects of the photos to completely open up to him and allows Long to create some of

the most stunning and compelling portraits that I have seen. Banksy has changed the way that I

view the world. His art portrays ideas that I would have never thought. They invoke thought

that allows me to see the world from different perspectives and understand other peoples’

points of view. JR is somebody who is similar to Joey Long in the sense that he must build

relationships with the people that he photographs in order for them to open up to him and his

camera. He is also similar to Banksy in that he does street art where everyone can see it and it

makes you think about what that person’s life may be like. But one thing that JR does that is

unique is he bridges the gap between the media and the locals of the third world countries

where he often works. When he finishes his work, he leaves. This way, if the media wants to

learn more about it, they don’t go to JR, but the instead must go into the cities and interact

with the people that see the art everyday. Nick Nichols, however, is the one that I most relate

to. The way that he is able to tell visual stories through his photographs while still being able to

have the picture visually appealing is truly inspiring.

Learning from each of the four artists, I put together a portfolio of photographs of mine

that I believe inspire people to want to help save the environment. (I am still in the process of

taking, editing, and selecting the pictures).

I fear that it won’t be long before people can only see pictures of snow, species that

once roamed the earth freely, and colorful wildlife. The best way to prevent this from

happening is to experience nature, and photography is a great way to show people what they

might not be able to see so that we can save the planet together.