Documenting an ocean of plastic

Mandy Barker's striking photographs initially resemble beautiful undersea creatures or scenes teeming with animal and plant life. But look more closely and you realise they actually show plastic waste such as carrier bags, fishing rope and children's toys, mimicking the very marine life forms they are killing.

Plastic pollution is one of the biggest environmental issues facing the planet today. Millions of tonnes of this harmful waste end up in the sea every year, and it is found in even the most remote places. It's ingested by fish, mammals and sea birds, causing countless numbers of them to suffocate or starve. It's a problem that's continually increasing.

"Something that's planned to have a few minutes' use remains for hundreds of years in the ocean," says Mandy. "Polymer scientists say that all plastic ever produced, unless it's been burned, is still on the planet somewhere, either in its original form or as nano or micro plastics. It's a horrific thought."

For more than ten years, Mandy has been creating artworks using plastic waste to highlight the extent of the damage it's doing to marine life and environments. Her work has been published internationally in magazines including National Geographic and Time, and has been nominated for major awards such as the Deutsche Börse Foundation Photography Prize and shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Pictet.

Mandy was a graphic designer for the first part of her career, but in 2008 she began studying for an MA in Photography at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. While there, she decided to focus on the ever-growing problem of plastic pollution, which she had noticed accumulating on the UK coastline.

"I had collected things like driftwood when younger, but gradually saw more and more waste washing up on the shore, especially plastic," she says. "I decided I really wanted to do something about it, and to see if I could do it with photography."

In her subsequent work, Mandy focused on representing the mass accumulation of plastic in oceans around the world by showing large numbers of individual items as if floating in the sea. The series Where Am I Going, for example, shows remnants of plastic balloons, while Penalty features hundreds of recovered footballs.

"I select the plastic waste items initially by what washes up on the shoreline," she says. "It could be a particular colour, or a group of similar objects that could then go on to raise awareness about problems in a particular area or country."

Many of her images show the all-too-familiar everyday plastic items that litter the world's oceans: children's toys, toothbrushes, combs, flowers, inkjet cartridges, cutlery, pipes and packaging. In one shocking image, she shows the 276 pieces of plastic found in the stomach of a single 90-day-old albatross chick.

Her images are carefully constructed to attract us with their beauty and then surprise us with what they actually show. "I want to pull the viewer in to read the information and find out what's going on," she says. "I did lots of experimentation and I realised this was the style that seemed to capture people's attention and make them think about the issue for longer."

Mandy used the approach of shooting multiple plastic objects in the same frame for her 2020 series Shelf-Life. This body of work resulted from being invited to take part in a scientific research trip to Henderson Island, located 5,000km from the nearest landmass in the southern Pacific Ocean. Over six tonnes of plastic were recovered from the shoreline on just that one trip.

Mandy has used various Canon cameras, but for the past two years has shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. "It suits my style of working," she says. "When I go on expeditions, I might be working outdoors with the camera hand-held in dim light, and the EOS 5D Mark IV is great in low light. Its performance is also important when I'm working indoors, because I photograph in a fairly low light environment with a single natural light source and with exposures of around three seconds, which enhances the colour of the objects against the black background.

"I also need quite large files, because some of my images are printed at large sizes – some have been shown on the side of shipping containers. In the EOS 5D Mark IV I've found that happy medium of getting very good quality without having file sizes that I can't manage and would just slow down the production process."

Mandy has a range of Canon lenses, but for almost all of her work uses the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM (now succeeded by the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM). Having this zoom range gives her the option to include a large group of objects or a select few, without having to change lenses. She also uses the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens for the smaller pieces of plastic she may want to highlight in the foreground, to capture the tiniest of details.

She uses essentially the same technique for most of her images, photographing the plastic objects on a black background, either on location or in her house, using natural light.

"The aperture I use depends on the size of the object," she says, "but I mostly shoot with an aperture of f/16 because I want maximum depth of field to make sure that all the objects are in focus and 'seen' - it is very important in my work that all the pieces of plastic can be recognised.

"I photograph groups of different-sized objects separately on a black background – from small microplastic particles to larger objects – and then sandwich the images together in Adobe® Photoshop®.* Sometimes I keep the original backgrounds, where bits of seaweed, sand or microplastic powder have been left. However, for Shelf-Life, I blended the layers of objects with colour images to reflect the coral waters surrounding the island.

"Some of the larger foreground objects are placed in Photoshop to enhance the composition, but basically everything is shot as it's scattered. It's often very random, which is the way things would be in the sea. I use an average of about five layers in one image, and the larger bits of plastic combine with the smaller ones to create the appearance of a depth of perspective."

Mandy says her aim is not simply to bring the issue of plastic pollution to a wider audience; she wants to raise awareness in the hope that it will lead to action and people will do something on a day-to-day level about their own plastic footprint.

"They might want to sign petitions, write to their MP or just go to the beach and pick up five pieces of plastic. If people look at my work and it inspires them to make a different decision, that's all I wish for," she says.

"Ultimately, I hope things will change on a huge scale, because that's what needs to happen."

*Adobe and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries.