Filmed and edited by Jan Vozenilek

Music by Christen Lien

Filmed and edited by Joe Schweers
Narrated by Chris Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

Filmed and edited by Jan Vozenilek
Narrated by Chris Jordan
Written by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

Exact Location on BlooSee

Video by Jan Vozenilek
Written by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

Filmed by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

Jan Vozenilek captures the presence and vulnerability of the fledgling birds of Midway in this next installment of his Brushstrokes vignettes.

Filmed and edited by: Jan Vozenilek
Written by: Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by: Christen Lien

Filmed and edited by: Joe Schweers
Narrated by: Chris Jordan
Music by: Christen Lien

The island will soon be covered with tens of thousands of carcasses like this, as the plastic-filled birds die from starvation, dehydration, and choking.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien

Well, not on Midway Atoll. On their second day on the island, Chris Jordan, Jan Vozenilek and the rest of the Midway Journey team are adopted as brothers and sisters by the charismatic albatrosses of Midway. These magnificent creatures inhabit the vast and solitary expanses of the North Pacific. A world of broad horizons, trade winds, passing storm clouds, and hundreds of shades of blue. A space of primeval purity that has changed little for millions of years.

Unchallenged by predators, these masters of the skies are intrigued by the proximity of unfamiliar two-legged creatures. Thus, the examiners become the examined, and the photographers have their lenses scrutinized and pecked by birds so fearless, and open to the possibilities, that instantly awaken the child inside of us.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien

Written by: Manuel Maqueda

Thank you for your patience as we have taken a few days to find our bearings and connect to the Internet.  We are astonished and delighted to find ourselves back here again on remote Midway Atoll.  The tiny island is now covered with several hundred thousand fledgling albatrosses inhabiting the paths, walkways, roads, meadows, and even the runway.

It’s hard to describe the complex mixture of feelings that arise in the presence of this incredible abundance of wildlife, especially as we are keenly aware of the devastating effects of the plastic that fills the stomachs of a huge percentage of these young birds.  One purpose of this leg of our journey is to witness their annual die-off, which will result in thousands of plastic-filled carcasses covering the ground as we saw when we visited here last September.

We’ve already begun to acquaint ourselves with the new stories that this chapter of our journey holds, and we look forward to sharing them with you over the next couple of weeks.  Thank you for joining us in this process.

With warm regards from Midway Atoll,

Chris, Victoria, Jan & Joe

Video by: Jan Vozenilek    Vimeo.com/JanVozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien  itsnotaviolin.com

See the area where this video was filmed on BlooSee’s satellite imagery.

Midway Journey members Chris Jordan, Manuel Maqueda, Jan Vozenilek and Bill Weaver reunited in May 2010 to attend the Media that Matters conference in Hollyhock, Cortes Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Music by Christen Lien

Video by Jan Vozenilek

A beach cleanup on Midway Atoll made us feel just like Sisyphus.

There are millions of tons of plastics present in our oceans, and these are constantly fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces which are scattered throughout the water column and present, in different densities, throughout all the worlds oceans.

Contrary to what many people believe, there are no visible islands of trash anywhere –even if some areas, the gyres, accumulate higher densities of plastic pollution. In actuality, what is happening is much more complex and scary: our oceans are becoming a planetary soup laced with plastic.

To make thing worse, these tiny pieces of plastic are extremely powerful chemical accumulators for organic persistent pollutants present in ambient sea water such as DDE‘s and PCB‘s. The whole food chain, invertebrates, fish, sea turtles… are eating plastic and /or other animals who have plastic in them. This means that we are. Like the albatrosses on Midway, we carry the garbage patch inside of us.

Cleaning up this mess is not feasible, technically or economically. Even if all the boats in the world were put to the task somehow, the cleanup would not only remove the plastics but also the plankton, which is the base of the food chain, and is responsible for capturing half of the CO2 of our atmosphere and generating half of the oxygen we need to breathe.

But even if this problem was solved too somehow, the amount of plastic that we could capture, at an immense cost, would be a drop in the bucket as compared to the amount that flows into the ocean every day.

No matter how hard we push, in terms of technology or money, the boulder will be rolling back down the hill, throughout eternity, unless we stop putting more plastics into our environment.

The good news is that we can do this. We can do this now. We need to start a social movement that spreads virally and creates a critical mass of concerned citizens who pledge to move away from our disposable habits, and who raise their voice to reject and reverse a throwaway culture that might be profitable, but whose consequences are intolerable.

Video by Jan Vozenilek
Written and narrated by: Manuel Maqueda
Music by Christen Lien www.itsnotaviolin.com

Click here to see a satellite image of the exact location of this video (click on ‘view map’ and zoom all the way in.)

An HD version can be viewed here.

Images and video: Chris Jordan.  Music: Christen Lien

The original quicktime file (103 MB) can be downloaded fron this link.

During our journey, Jan would occasionally steal away from the group, and wander alone in the island with his camera.  The rest of us would wonder where he was, and what kind of footage he would be capturing.

The scenes on Brushstrokes 2 speak of moments of intimacy, where the cinematographer is alone in the field, tuning into the pulse of the land, and letting its natural beauty tell an ancient story of survival and renewal.

In this short video lies a reverence for nature so profound, that our eye has to concentrate on the small details, and peek shyly through blades of grass, lest the direct contemplation of the greatness of it all be overwhelming.  As we watch, we feel the emergence of that peculiar sense wonder that is often thought to belong only to childhood.  A sense of awe and discovery that we are taught to suppress and forget as we grow up.

As time slows down, and the rays of golden light fall gently on the tortured landscape of Midway, subtle brushstrokes of natural beauty are painted over a canvas too many times torn and blotted by the blindness of man.

Video by Jan Vozenilek. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek.  Voiceover: Victoria Sloan Jordan.

Music by Christen Lien

Matt Brown, Manager of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, took us on a tour of Eastern Island as he and two volunteers inspected three fresh water ponds occupied by extremely rare and endangered Laysan Ducks.  Eastern Island is entirely crisscrossed by abandoned runways dating back to World War II, today almost unrecognizable under a layer of vegetation that grows through cracks in the pavement.  While nature slowly triumphs over dilapidated asphalt, iron and cement, Eastern Island has not escaped the onslaught of plastic pollution, which is present everywhere.

Video by Bill Weaver. Cinematography by Jan Vozenilek. Voiceover by Chris Jordan. Interviewee: Matt Brown. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.

Video by Bill Weaver, voice over by Chris Jordan. Music by Christen Lien.

So much plastic, and in such bizarre combinations of objects and colors, that we recently posted a video in which Chris explains his photography ethic: no plastic is added to any photo, and the plastic is never rearranged.

It will be more than a month before Chris’ photos are processed and released. This morning Chris decided to offer a glimpse of what these carcasses look like.

Kittipong Janthasang is a Bangkok native who has lived on Midway for three years. We can find him pulling invasive weeds from the fields and also bartending at the island’s only pub during its brief hours of operation. Kittipong’s passion, however, is wildlife photography. In his spare time, he goes out with his camera and patiently and delicately captures intimate portraits of the natural beauty of Midway. Amazing photos that, until now, were confined to his laptop, and shared only with his friends on the island. It has been an honor for us at Midway Journey to discover the excellent body of photographic work by Kittipong, and to have the opportunity to post a selection of his images online for the first time, in the form of this slide show.

Kittipong’s photographic work conveys a contagious, heartfelt reverence for nature, and offers the viewer a rare and invaluable look into the immense natural wealth of Midway.

Photography by Kittipong Janthasang. Slide Show edited by Jan Vozenilek.  Music by Christen Lien.

Those interested in Kittipong’s photography can contact him at kittipong-p at hotmail dot com.