Visual Pollution

I wasn't going to write anything today, but while editing some photos I stumbled across this excellent photo/audio essay on NYTimes.com about visual pollution and how it is isolating Americans from connecting to their community.

Check out the Essay here


Photos are by NY Times Photog Angel Franco and the audio portion of it is from Kevin Fry, president of Scenic America. As a photographer and graphic designer, I spend a lot of time contemplating the impact of images on people - but not in terms of how they effect the cultural soul of our country. This piece delves into that and shows photos of the drab, disconnected imagery bombarding us on a daily basis. Mr. Fry goes into some interesting theories about how it's impossible to connect as people when we can't connect to our place. And megamalls and landscapes filled with signs take away the identities that American towns used to possess. It's interesting to note that small towns with identities (at least in California) have developed more into tourist destinations than true , affordable, livable spaces. Have we as a culture become visually apathetic?

Here are a couple of LA pics that I snapped over the past few years. These, of course, are not representative of photography I would normally show - but they capture the essence of this disconnection to place in the American landscape.


It's a great 2 minute slide show - I suggest checking it out.