"Particulate Matter" - Weirdly Beautiful Photo Essay On Chinese Cities Disappearing In Smog - WP

[hatrack]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

AQI 360, Shiziazhuang. (Benedikt Partenheimer)

China is disappearing into a haze of pollution. In the capital, it’s a “life-or death situation,” as Beijing’s mayor bluntly put it in January. In February, he went so far as to declare his city unlivable.

“Everyone must decide for himself if he wants to care about something,” artist Benedikt Partenheimer told In Sight. Partenheimer’s photographs “Particulate Matter” call attention to China’s decades-old air-pollution problem. “Reducing air pollution could save millions of lives,” Partenheimer said. “I personally think that this is a very good reason to care.”

In recent years, China has changed the way it talks about its pollution problem. The government publishes updates in real time on the degree of air pollution in the Air Quality Index (AQI). The index rates the smog labels such as “good,” “unhealthy” and “hazardous.”

EDIT

“Of course one can feel the effects of air pollution,” Partenheimer said about working on the project. He began “Particulate Matter” while he was an artist in residence in Shanghai. Partenheimer shot the project with an analog camera on a tripod which forced him to work slowly but he said that it allowed him to work “deliberately and precisely.” Partenheimer said “photography is just another way to examine and to explore the world and to critically engage with it.” While working on the project he wore a mask but said “after a few hours outside I would always have this strange, kind of metallic taste in my mouth. ”

EDIT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

AQI 400, Shanghai. (Benedikt Partenheimer)

BONUS POINTS: Who can tell me what the photograph below is a picture of?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

EDIt

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2015/03/02/china-is-disappearing/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. I think he may be making a point that the sun cannot be seen.

Ghastly environment.

ahhh..here it is...on the web site. "AQI 350, a picture of the Sun."

[brer cat]

2. That is very frightening, hatrack.

The citizens have to be suffering horribly trying to breath through that pollution.

[2naSalit]

3. A sobering thought about that..

either the people who live/work there will die en masse or they will develop an immunity of a sort. If it's the former, perhaps the government is looking to reduce the population in a short period of time.