Chris Jordan: Running The Numbers

Seattle photographer Chris Jordan's work is so different, so intriguing, so filled with message that it really is important to see for yourself. Rather than try to describe it I will let you read what he has said in his own words:

"Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month.

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the roles and responsibilities we each play as individuals in a collective that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

~chris jordan, Seattle, 2008 "

He subsequently continued this style of photography with another project entitled "Running The Numbers II"

I think this work is illuminating and worth looking at and thinking about. After all, isn't the best kind of photography the kind that makes you think?

Here is a link to Jordan's website. Because of the way the site is constructed, I can't give a direct link to the project pages.....so once on the home page just click on the Running The Numbers projects and have a look for yourself!