Sunday, July 11, 2010

BP and where I live

Just got an email this morning from Ben Prisk who lives in Ocean Springs, MS. The following is a post from his blog.

"I ran across the image below tonight at Boingboing. It was done by photographer Jane Fulton (look at the rest of her work please).

Currently, our barrier islands are doing a fair job of keeping the oil at bay. Growing up, I used to hate those islands, because they kept our water from being a brilliant green (as it was when you sailed to those islands). Now those islands are covered in the oil that all the other states are encountering.

I've held a bag of that oil....it has the weight and consistency of molten liver. I've talked to the men trying to skim it. When the oil splashes onto the boats, it takes an acidic cleaner and a lot of 'elbow grease' to remove it (hours).

I spoke to a friend of mine who owns a gorgeous wooden boat that BP tried to hire....he looked at the fine print in the contract and it said that 'all wooden boats would have to be destroyed after the event'. He declined, as his 52 ft boat was built in 1939 by a 19th century local boat builder wiped out by Katrina.

Thanks barrier islands.

If I were a wealthy man, I would license her images from her, have them printed in bus-stop size format and have them placed along the coast.... no logos ... no words ... only a tiny photo credit. Her work says it all."

© 2010 Jane Fulton Alt ~ Keith, Laura and Olivia

6 comments:

Mojo said...

How wonderful that your work is having this kind of impact. I'm glad to see it reaching the people of the region. Well done! I've been following the progression of this series and loving the humanity of it. (And Stumbling it every chance I get.)

Rita A said...

As we stop seeing news about this disaster on television and other medias, we forget that BP casts away 60 million barrils in the sea every day. Its a horrible fact and your work dont allow people to deny it. Congratulations from Brazil.

Márcia Bellotti said...

Very good!

jsb said...

Thanks for sending the wrong message to tourists and contributing to ruining our economy. Thanks much.

Mabissa said...

Great photos, and project! I wish we could do a satellite project like this where I lived. Also, what do you think about posing people like the stranded animals we've seen in the news?

Danny St said...

This is a really powerful series! Kudos on this great work. And yeah, I agree with what Ben Prisk said about printing this large and posting it along the coast - that's an equally brilliant idea!