STILL LIFE
I took these photos to shine a light onto how money itself can be the main culprit of the negative effects on the world’s climate. For example, most of the Amazon rainforest deforestation is caused by cutting down trees for furniture use or agricultural farming, which are actions done, purely for economical growth.
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In the second photo, I put a seashell on top of the money to symbolize how oil and fuel companies, such as Shell, who take advantage of crude oil storages under the earth’s crust. The main environmental issues that such companies present is when transporting the oil across the ocean, sometimes spilling it, causing wide spreads of pollution in the ocean, disturbing any sea life in the proximity. As these oil spillage as so hard to clean up, such a great amount of sea life is injured, or dies due to these companies, trying to profit from something that’ll only cause more atmospheric pollution. I also included the rotten flowers to show the decay that large industrial companies bring onto nature.
I shot these photos on February 20th 2020, on the day when the UK government finally came out with the new £20 note, which is made out of plastic, so from crude oil. I used these old paper notes to symbolize how money itself is even a primary cause of deforestation, as they definitely cut down trees to make these paper notes. I wonder what they’ll do with them when they finally become out of order in a few months.
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On the other two photos I used an old car alternator and what looks like a motorcycle chain to symbolize how politicians and other capitalists blame the automotive industry for a large amount of the Carbon Dioxide emissions. However this is quite controversial as pollution from petrol and diesel cars only makes up a very small percentage of the overall emissions, especially in the UK. The main sources of pollution are actually from manufacturing industries. An alternative to petrol and diesel cars are fully electric or hybrid cars, although quite some controversy is brought up again to this, as manufacturing these electric vehicles and their batteries, produces a lot more carbon dioxide than manufacturing a normal petrol car. According to statistics an electric car’s emissions from production evens out with a petrol car’s emissions after around 6 years. On top of that, most of the electricity is produced from a coal station, very few from renewable sources like wind turbines and hydro-stations, therefore, even though you’re driving using electricity, you’re still contributing to global warming, and climate change. Scrapping these electric cars also produce a much bigger threat to the environment, unlike normal gasoline cars, due to their intricate batteries.
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I used coloured gels to light my objects, not only to make them look a bit more interesting, but to portray a hidden meaning. I used a red and blue gel on each sides for a strong contrast, but also to create a blend of purple in the middle. Purple combines the calm stability of blue and the fierce energy of red. The color purple is said to be often associated with royalty, nobility, luxury, power, and ambition, symbolizing what these capitalistic companies try to achieve.. Purple also represents meanings of wealth, associating with the money, also why one of the biggest notes, the £20 is purple.