On The Beach

2011-04-16T19:06:00.000-04:00

Unveiling the Pictures of the Year- CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ANON PHOTOGRAPHER WHO GOT THE IMPACT 2010 AWARD OF EXCELLENCE!

2011-02-24T10:25:00.003-05:00

Unveiling the Pictures of the Year

There are nearly 50 judging categories in the Pictures of the Year International competition, some of which cite a half dozen or more winners and finalists. Winning images are posted on the Web site as the two-week judging period moves along. But until the judging is finished, the school deliberately doesn’t announce the names of the photographers or where their work appeared. This is meant to ensure that judges in pending categories stick to photographic merits and don’t think things like, “Well, we can’t give another prize to The L.A. Times — they’ve already won enough.”

Provided to The New York Times
Impact 2010, award of excellence: The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and burned in the Gulf of Mexico, off Louisiana. April 20, 2010.

But it has become so easy to figure out the identities anyway, James Estrin said recently on Lens (“And the Winner Is — Anonymous“), that the purpose behind anonymity seems to have been defeated.

So it may seem a bit of a paradox that The Times submitted for prize consideration a breathtaking picture of the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that was taken by someone whose identity the newspaper has not divulged, for his protection as a worker in the region. The photograph won an award of excellence in the Impact 2010 category, as “Anonymous, ‘Untitled.”"

Winners of the Sixty-Eighth Annual
Pictures of the Year International Competition

2011-02-22T14:46:00.001-05:00

Dolphin Deaths In Gulf Region Spike, Probably Because Of That Massive Oil Spill That Happened

2011-01-08T19:51:00.001-05:00

About to complete the order for the first of the three books.

On The Beach: I

On The Beach: II

On The Beach: III

2010-12-26T12:09:00.001-05:00

Anon Photographer
Photos Provided to the NYT.

2010-12-26T11:47:00.001-05:00

Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours

2010-12-23T10:45:00.003-05:00

Provided to the NYT
Photographer Anonymous

2010-11-20T17:08:00.000-05:00

Justice for Spill Victims, Like It or Not
By JOE NOCERA

2010-11-05T17:37:00.002-04:00

Dead Coral Found Near Site of Gulf Oil Spill- New York Times

2010-10-23T23:15:00.000-04:00

Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico by Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune

October 23, 2010

2010-10-22T09:53:00.002-04:00

I came up with the intent of working full force on the big show but a few things happened that made me want to come back to On The Beach, which is new work I'm still thinking about and working on shooting and hadn't really thought that I was ready to come back to it. But it's been in my head and I saw this kid's bracelets at a Starbucks up here and knew I had to get to business.

I'm finding that the great majority of the portraits are out.

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2010-10-21T23:06:00.001-04:00

Louisiana Builds Barriers Even as Oil Disperses

2010-10-18T12:04:00.001-04:00

2010-10-09T11:06:00.003-04:00

On The Beach is going to be at least a 5 year long project. I'm looking at the work and it's just the start.

Bathers

2010-10-08T16:32:00.001-04:00

Economy of the U.S. Gulf

2010-10-06T19:18:00.002-04:00

Annual Revenue in Billions l Jobs
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Oil and Gas 62.7 l 107,000

Tourism 38.1 l 524,000

Commercial Fishing 0.7 l 14,000

2010-09-30T22:31:00.000-04:00

Researchers Found 40-Fold Increase In Carcinogenic Compounds In Gulf

2010-09-26T15:38:00.001-04:00

Testing The Water

Testing The Water Mission Statement:
Our grassroots movement of concerned citizens is dedicated to ascertaining the true magnitude of health risks associated with exposure to oil and chemical dispersants in the Gulf waters through independent laboratory testing. Our citizen's coalition supports the advocation of the Precautionary Principle when it comes to Environmental Protection Safety.

2010-09-25T19:27:00.001-04:00

I'm not quite back to working on the gulf stuff, but I keep coming back to this photo. Man, I knocked it out of the park with this one.

2010-09-14T15:49:00.000-04:00

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2010-09-05T00:25:00.001-04:00

BP Says Limits on Drilling Imperil Oil Spill Payouts

2010-09-03T10:42:00.000-04:00

BP Says Limits on Drilling Imperil Oil Spill Payouts By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and JOHN M. BRODER

Fuck you, BP.

2010-08-30T11:05:00.001-04:00

Back to the Gulf on Thursday. Thanks to everyone who has made these trips possible. I have great conviction that it's really important to go and I am so grateful to have been able to work on this project. It's been a little bit of a struggle because I thought that I was going to be able to be home this whole summer and I've been home for just a little bit. I'm going to be missing some family stuff here to go back for the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, which is upsetting and was a difficult decision but I feel very strongly that this is a very important event, a long standing celebration of community and industry that's coming at an interesting juncture, knowing the well is capped and the relief involved, and the anxiety of beginning the wait to see the full long term impact of the catastrophe.

2010-08-19T16:05:00.002-04:00

Gulf Oil Plume Is Not Breaking Down Fast, Research Says
By Justin Gillis and John Collins Rudolf

"New research confirms the existence of a huge plume of dispersed oil deep in the Gulf of Mexico and suggests that it has not broken down rapidly, raising the possibility that it might pose a threat to wildlife for months or even years."

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Scientists report undersea oil plume stretching 21 miles from BP spill site By David A. Fahrenthold and Kimberly Kindy

"News of the plume was announced Thursday afternoon by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. In late June, they found an invisible cloud of oil droplets as tall as a 65-story building and more than a mile wide.

Since then, they said, all that oil was unlikely to have been consumed by the gulf's crop of hydrocarbon-eating microbes. These work quickly in the warm waters near the surface, but far more slowly in the cold, deep region where the plume was found.

"Our data would predict that the plume would still be there now," said Benjamin Van Mooy, a Woods Hole researcher."

2010-08-13T20:28:00.002-04:00

On The Beach Studio 360 Interview

Click above to check out an interview I did about On The Beach for Studio 360 in NY.
Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen is a weekly radio show about arts and pop culture, from PRI and WNYC.

2010-08-04T09:28:00.002-04:00

Great news! U.S. Finds Most Oil From Spill Poses Little Additional Risk

"A government report finds that about 26 percent of the oil released from BP’s runaway well is still in the water or onshore in a form that could, in principle, cause new problems."

That means there's only 53.3 MILLION gallons of oil in the gulf that could, in principle, be a problem.

Granted, in the same article-

“I think we don’t know yet the full impact of this spill on the ecosystem or the people of the gulf,” Dr. Lubchenco said.

Among the biggest unanswered questions, ( Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) said, is how much damage the oil has done to the eggs and larvae of organisms like fish, crabs and shrimp. That may not become clear for a year or longer, as new generations of those creatures come to maturity."

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Graphic from the NYT 8/4/10

2010-08-03T11:25:00.001-04:00

BP claims office

2010-08-03T10:40:00.002-04:00

On The Beach Interview With Tyler Green

Check it out!
Thanks to Tyler for interviewing me.

2010-08-02T21:17:00.002-04:00

Spill Is Biggest Accidental Oil Release, New U.S. Data Show

205 million gallons of oil

1.8 million, minimum, gallons of dispersant

THANKS TO ALL WHO FINANCIALLY CONTRIBUTED TO "ON THE BEACH"

2010-08-02T14:09:00.011-04:00

Janet Goldwater
Robert Macneill
Ilene Baker
Stephen James Millner
Rosalind Fox Solomon
Maura Ellen White
Maritza C Ranero
Aaron Wickenden
Amy Sadao
Suzette Brown
Michelle
Eddie Geisingerr
Bo Bartlett
Joanne Greenbaum
Rikki Reich
Meredith L Malone
Christopher w Griffith
Andrea Shemeley
Albert Yee
Jacqueline van Rhyn
Abigail Guay
Erin
Katharine DeShaw
Wayne
Richard Michael Torchia
Sally A Stein
Mr. Michael Alexander Macfeat
Pam Farrell
Amy Szczepaniak
Tiffany Jones
Frank Sherlock
Evelyn
Adam Robbins
Gabriel
Yasha B Wallin
Xtine
Wendy Olsoff
Brad Daly
Pilar Berguido
Liz Kuball
Amber Straus
Mel Trittin
Marianne Bernstein
J Zarro
Kelly O'Brien
Christopher H Paquette
Katy, Jason and Julien Friedland
Peter Medvin
Diana Norton
JPS
Debra Dysart
Walter Wlodarczyk
David DiSabatino
John Gordon
Jason L Lazarus
Amada Cruz
Brae Lawren Howard
Susie Anderson
Kyle Cassidy
Julia Bryan-Wilson
Carl Gunhouse
Neal Anderson
Julie Courtney
Zack Avshalomov
L Lee Alter
Pew Center for Arts and Heritage

Without your support, this project wouldn't have happened, these photos wouldn't have been made. As the catastrophe moves out of the public eye, I am certain that it was important to go down and make these photos. I can't thank all of you enough.

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2010-08-01T22:31:00.061-04:00

Working on ordering the photos, but I'm going to stop work on this for 2 weeks while I work on Brighton. I need a little time away from them so I can figure out what the hell I'm doing.

2010-07-31T21:58:00.001-04:00

Despite Rule, BP Used Dispersant, Panel Finds by Matthew Wald

2010-07-30T16:05:00.000-04:00

Countering BP's PR: Deception by Dispersal; The Great Gulf Oil Tragedy by Rocky Kistner

Check it out.

2010-07-30T15:39:00.007-04:00

A component I want to explore with this project is a shift of perspective and a struggle to make out what the photo is showing the viewer.

All of the shots are human scale, but with a lack of size reference there's confusion as to the size of what's there.

Below is oil in a tidal pool

Below is the same pool

Below is the size reference of the pool, my foot is in a white bootie at the bottom of the frame

Below is a patch of oiled sand on a Waveland beach, I made the photo standing and shooting down

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the 2 photos below were made standing and shooting at the horizon

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the photos below were made shooting from a plane that was flying to the site of the spill. The best perspective on the size of these is in the first photo where you can see a shrimping boat at the upper right corner.

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Firing Line by Mattathias Schwartz

2010-07-29T20:15:00.004-04:00

Check out this article by Matt Schwartz in the NYT today... Firing Line by Mattathias Schwartz

Matt and I are planning on working together on a piece based around the upcoming Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. He recently spent some time in Southern Louisiana and recommended that I get in touch with Buddy Compton, who turned out to be a great guy and an incredible source of information.

I'm really looking forward to working with him on some something.

2010-07-29T16:22:00.010-04:00

It's premature to begin laying out the photos in book format but it's helping me figure out the structure of the project on the whole and which photos might be the keystones.

Full bleed on right hand side photo is likely
Right hand side photo with small black border is possible
No text or page numbers is definite
Photo on the right hand and left hand page is possible, but very unlikely
Photo on the right hand page and blank page on the corresponding left hand page is very likely
If left blank, left hand page will be black matte paper

I'm thinking about paper vellum between the blank page and the photo although that's unlikely
I'm also thinking about extending the size of the book length wise to allow for a black margin on the left hand side of the photo on the right hand page.

Another option is accordion fold out.

I'm thinking how many I'm going to make... most likely 250 to 300 total.

In addition to the more traditional book format, I also might make a tabloid publication akin to one published in Madrid, a newspaper with pull out images.

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2010-07-28T22:08:00.003-04:00

A bunch of these shots would have benefited from the use of a faster camera. And a bunch of these shots would have benefited from the use of a large format camera. Realistically, in terms of getting the most out of the day the camera I used is fine. There's 2 or 3 portraits I'd like to go back and redo with a large format camera and I'd love to go back to the oyster fields with a bigger camera.

2010-07-28T22:06:00.001-04:00

2010-07-28T22:04:00.000-04:00

2010-07-28T21:24:00.001-04:00

2010-07-28T21:15:00.001-04:00

On The Beach

2010-07-28T16:33:00.004-04:00

3 days left to help fund... if you can please help me out! I want to go back to Southern Louisiana one more time and shoot at the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in Morgan City. It's happening Labor Day week. I need an additional 1500 to be able to do it.

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From the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival website...

Please join us for our 75th annual festival to be held Sept. 2 - 6, 2010, in picturesque downtown Morgan City, Louisiana. This is an event that will prove that oil and water really do mix. Deep in the heart of Cajun Country, every Labor Day Weekend, tens of thousands of people celebrate at Louisiana's oldest chartered harvest festival.

The festival has been honoring those who have worked tirelessly through rain and shine...and sometimes even hurricanes, to provide the area's economic lifeblood for over half a century. The festival also emphasizes the unique way in which these two seemingly different industries work hand-in-hand culturally and environmentally in this area of the "Cajun Coast."

2010-07-28T16:26:00.000-04:00

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

2010-07-28T13:48:00.001-04:00

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2010-07-28T11:12:00.001-04:00

BP Claims Office

2010-07-28T10:46:00.001-04:00

2010-07-28T10:44:00.001-04:00

2010-07-28T09:05:00.014-04:00

At the airport on the way home from Louisiana I met a guy, Jack, who works in oil spill management. Among the many, many things he told me regarding the oil spill were...

1. oil will breakdown into fertilizer and crude oil is a great fertilizer

2. I expressed concern that the number of dispersants used could cause long term problems he said that we use dispersants everyday, like dawn dishwashing detergent.

3. After showing him a photo I made of oiled water running inland into a marsh he said they'll probably burn the marshes which they do every few years anyway.

Burning the marshes was a real shocker. What? Burn the marshes? Now, I know very, very little about geology, biology and organic chemistry, let me get that out the way, but while burning oil affected marshes is a option due to desperation in lessening the impact of the spill wetlands are not burned every few years. Stop me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty certain that there's no "every few years controlled burns" in the Louisiana wetlands.

Jack believes that things will be fine within the next couple of months, and I hope that he is completely right. But honestly I was amazed at the misinformation he had going on. Here's who's helping to manage the clean up.

Click here for his personal blog. I suggest that people take a look at it and read all of the Louisiana oil spill posts. I asked if I could link to it and even though I asked him I was hesitant to link to it because it's a personal blog. However, I think it's important to read it due to his job as a contracted oil spill manager.

2010-07-28T08:20:00.002-04:00

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2010-07-27T22:51:00.001-04:00

On the Surface, Gulf Oil Spill Is Vanishing Fast; Concerns Stay

2010-07-24T17:04:00.007-04:00

"BP PLC has deployed more than 1.8 million gallons of dispersant in the Gulf since its record-breaking oil leak began in April, sparking concerns among environmental and public-health advocates as well as some scientists and several members of the Senate Appropriations Committee's science panel"

EPA Chief Calls for More Authority Over Dispersants
Thanks, star librarian John Powell for sending me this article.

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"Scientists began warning that massive use of dispersants could create unknown risks to human and marine health...

Nalco (the manufacturer of the dispersent Corexit) already has sold $40 million worth of Corexit, according to Jeffries & Co Inc. analyst Laurence Alexander. The company stands to make $800,000 to $6.5 million per day from its dispersant sales, assuming a spill of roughly 200,000 to 1 million gallons a day...

Nalco considers the amount of the chemical components in Corexit a trade secret and has refused to make that information public, although they have released the information to the EPA..."

From Maker of Controversial Dispersant Used in Gulf Oil Spill Hires Top Lobbyists

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Corexit safety data sheet in pdf... this isn't concealed, it's right there. 1.8 million gallons.

NALCO COREXIT SAFETY DATA SHEET

Excerpts from the Corexit safety data sheet...

"TOXICOLOGICAL INFORMATION- No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product."

"SECTIONS 311 AND 312 - MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET REQUIREMENTS (40 CFR 370) :

Our hazard evaluation has found this product to be hazardous. The product should be reported under the following
indicated EPA hazard categories:

X Immediate (Acute) Health Hazard
- Delayed (Chronic) Health Hazard
- Fire Hazard
- Sudden Release of Pressure Hazard
- Reactive Hazard

Under SARA 311 and 312, the EPA has established threshold quantities for the reporting of hazardous chemicals.
The current thresholds are: 500 pounds or the threshold planning quantity (TPQ), whichever is lower, for extremely
hazardous substances and 10,000 pounds for all other hazardous chemicals."

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Bay St. Louis

Waveland, MS

2010-07-24T09:13:00.001-04:00

2010-07-24T00:41:00.007-04:00

I'm going to need some research and math help here, including reputable sources for the info.

1. By May 24, 2010 BP had applied 700,000 US gallons of Corexit. How much Corexit has been applied to date? I need the final number of gallons.

People in Venice, LA were certain that BP used Corexit long after the EPA banned it and were applying it at night, but I need a rock solid number, although of course the actual number of gallons could be much higher.

2. What is the approximate number of barrels of oil that have been released into the Gulf? And what is the conversion to gallons of oil?

If you can, please help me out with this information.

Thanks!

EPA Response to BP Spill in the Gulf of Mexico: Dispersants

2010-07-21T23:21:00.000-04:00

Maker of Controversial Dispersant Used in Gulf Oil Spill Hires Top Lobbyists

2010-07-20T01:17:00.001-04:00

2010-07-20T01:06:00.001-04:00

Super stressed about money and ability. SUPER STRESSED.

2010-07-18T10:59:00.000-04:00

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