I have been working on this project for the passed several months and I am excited to now show you the final photographs and discuss the process and research of this project.

Plastic pollution has become more apparent to society and the world. We were all moved by the television BBC series Blue Planet which highlighted this issue. I was influenced by first hand experience, seeing how much plastic was on the local beaches I visited myself beaches. Recently this has become more obvious to me as I now live nearer the coast and visit the beach more often. I read an article called Storm Eleanor leaves ‘tidal wave of waste’ in Cornwall which talked about Storm Eleanor washing up rubbish and plastic onto the beaches. I think it gave people a reality check because this storm affected local beaches and highlighted the extent that we are to blame for the amount of plastic waste in the sea. I wanted to understand the quantity of rubbish and plastic waste so researched articles that related to this. BBC article called Seven charts that explain the plastic pollution problem which talked about the amount of rubbish in the seas University of Georgia in Athens estimated the figure as 8m tonnes 2015 and how long it will take to for some of the rubbish to decompose in the sea for example fishing wire will take 600 years to biograde.

From this research I decided to photograph local Beach-cleaning societies, this included Fistral beachclean and Prazeanbeeble W.I. They allowed me to tag along with them capturing the work that they did in all winds and weathers, giving me an understanding of other people knowledge about this issue. I  now understand that there more  serious issues other than big plastic waste there are things called micro plastics which are much harder to see, but are very dangerous as they cause harm because animals can mistake them as food. This causes death in some cases because of all the chemicals that went into making plastic and can also get into our food chain as well. It was interesting to see the amount people who put in the effort to get rid of plastic and rubbish off the beaches. I was shocked by the amount we found, I don’t think the vast majority of people understand the amount of time it is going to take to get the rid of the plastic and rubbish pollution in the sea. It’s great that these volunteers put effort to try and rid of some of this rubbish from their own local beaches. To find your local beach clean and join in if you live in cornwall check out this website here: http://www.cleancornwall.org/index.php

Considering this I decided to go out on my own and see what I could find on my local beaches, I found a whole range of things which included:

• Tennis balls
• A buoy

• Ear bud
• Toothbrush
• Glass
• Piping
• Rubber
• Micro plastic
• Polystyreen
• Slabe of molten plastic
• Plastic bottles
• Rope
• Fishing wire

The amount  found was astonishing. The range of objects that I found was fascinating. I documented all of the rubbish with my camera but felt I was not achieving a clear message with this work.

Expanding from this I wanted to make the work more sensitive to the viewer, to make them reflect about what is in the ocean. That’s why I decided to call the work “Do we believe the ocean is still blue?”   my thinking was  to get the viewers thinking about the amount of the plastic that is in the ocean also understanding this issue that has built up over many years and we have only just become aware. By showing the object in its natural state allows the viewer to experience the reality of plastic waste in our ocean. 

From the depth of the ocean and only having minimal light it highlighted certain aspect of the plastic, creating a abstract photograph which the viewer can then question what they are looking at. Its a still and relaxing, athletically pleasing atmosphere within the photograph. 

The message I want you the reader to take away from this post, is to try and be more environmentally friendly using less plastic in your life, recycling any plastic you use and when you visit the beach take a moment to pick up any rubbish you see and put it in the bin rather than leaving it there and destroying the environment. If we all do our bit we may start to have a clean ocean again.