Chris Jordan (born 1963) is a photographic artist who in his works presents forms of American consumerism and combines them with shocking information and examples of excessive consumption. A former lawyer, his technique involves mixing photography and digital tools in order to show how consumerism destroys our planet.

In his photographs, Jordan points out our how the excessive consumerism endangers our environment and every living being living on it. Through both documentary and digitally manipulated photographs, he shows us the results of mass consumption. In order to depict the reality, he has photographed mountains of cell phones, cars, and other consumer waste products, as well as the dead bodies of albatrosses on Midway Island.

In his ongoing ‘Running the Number’ series, he makes important social and environmental statistics visible by transforming problems into pictures. For example, including the head of a whale composed entirely of plastic bags. In 2005, he published a book “Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster”, a series of photographs about hurricane Katrina, where he portrayed the impact of the storm. He was also an international eco-ambassador for Earth Day 2008 and traveled around the world that year with National Geographic.

Jordan sees beauty and art in places where other people see rubbish. His goal is to make others think about their habits and see the bigger picture. He says that without understating the problem, we can’t act and make a positive change and because of this he creates images that should make us feel something and then make a decision as a result. Just like in Jordan’s complex and detailed art works, the key to a better environment is small changes that individuals can make, that will eventually lead to a bigger solution.
Take a look at some of his works and also check out his TED Talks.

Depicts 11,000 jet trails, equal to the number of commercial flights in the U.S. every eight hours.

Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the U.S. every 30 seconds.

Depicts 29,569 handguns, equal to the number of gun-related deaths in the U.S. in 2004.

Depicts 65,000 cigarettes, equal to the number of American teenagers under age 18 who become addicted to cigarettes every month.

Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the U.S. every five seconds.

Depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the U.S. every day.

For more, visit Chris Jordan’s official website:  www.chrisjordan.com