Environmental Problems through the Camera Lens

By Natalia Reshetnikova

Supervisor: Dr. Gesa Lüdecke

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing
anything." - Albert Einstein

Many artists have always been and will always be inspired by the problems of their time. Through their
work, they express their emotions and feelings about what is happening in their era, putting into art the
conclusions they have drawn themselves and want to convey to others. One of these issues of the past
is environmental problems.

During the past few decades, a lot of research has been done showing that art helps people to
understand and feel the problem better than the transmission of information through news or
newspapers. Based on this I decided as part of a final project to try to create my series of photographs
about the huge problem of ocean pollution under the title "The Ocean Feels Too".
I have decided to focus on this topic because it is photography that brings up a wide range of emotions
and allows me to reflect on different problems. With the development of social media, I started to find
more and more activists on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook who tried to show, through
artistic photography, the problems of ecology in today's world.

My final project consists of a practical part - a series of photographs, and a small theoretical part, which
includes a description with sources and references that inspired me to create this project. The
photographs depict two environmental problems associated with ocean pollution.

The first series focuses on oil spills in the ocean. Over the past few decades, this problem has become more and more relevant. The spill of tankers in the ocean leads not only to the death of animals and plants living in this
territory but also "poisons" the entire ocean and has long-term consequences.

The second problem that I wanted to show in my photos is the garbage in the ocean, especially the large number of fishing nets. This problem endangers fish and large marine mammals that can be swallowed or entangled in these old nets. All this also leads to the extinction of certain animal species.

I hope that when viewing these photos, you will also be able to share my emotions and the meaning
that I tried to put into this photo shoot.