Underwater trash photos look like scenes from an alien world

[drokhole]

Underwater trash photos look like scenes from an alien world
source: io9

The subjects of Mandy Barker's photographs look like creatures from another world, but they're actually quite mundane: discarded fishing nets, plastic bottles, and toothpaste tubes. They're what sits beneath the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Barker photographed the "soup," the plastic debris suspended in water from the Garbage Patch, to create strange alien scenes. But even though the objects in these photos aren't alive, they're still dangerous, killing ocean life wherever the patch travels.





more photos here: http://mandy-barker.com/current/soup/

More on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch here: What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch?

[Auggie]

1. Could pass for Pop Art ...

How deeply disturbing

[Deep13]

2. Is that the sea floor or what is suspended in the water?

Either way, given the degree to which life on Earth depends on the oceans...

[izquierdista]

3. For some, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a quest

[intheflow]

4. These aren't photos of the SOUP, as the article claims.

They're an artist representation of what it might look like under the SOUP. Mandy Barker's web page says the plastic was collected from various beaches around the world. Not that the garbage patch isn't horrific, or the images evocative and disturbing - or even that the plastic photographed wasn't in the ocean at some point. I'm just pointing out bad reporting, which annoys me no end.