In Chris’ words:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

More details on Chris’ photography ethic can be found here.

The full selection of photographs released to date can be viewed here.

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.

As soon as we landed on the island, we all agreed to adhere to a strict work ethic that is summarized in these three rules:

• No plastic added.  We never add any additional plastic to any images or compositions. What you’ll see it what was there.
• No rearranging. The plastic contents of the rib cages are not rearranged in any way.
• OK to remove. We allow ourselves to occasionally remove from the frame a few objects that might obstruct the view, such as twigs, feathers, grass leaves, or pieces of plastic from the top layer.

Chris Jordan explains these rules in more detail in the following video.