Midway » jan vozenilek

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Plastic is Fantastic – Teaser

Jan Vozenilek — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:24:04 +0000

Coming soon… Chris and Victoria enjoy the wonders of a plastic lifestyle in their makeshift house on Midway Atoll.

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Kaleidoscope, a poem by Victoria Sloan Jordan

Victoria Sloan Jordan — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:16:28 +0000

In this poetic offering, a plastic filled bird carcass becomes a symbol for awakening.

Filmed and edited by Jan Vozenilek

Music by Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Harbor Trap

Jan Vozenilek — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 07:02:43 +0000

Young albatrosses making their first foray out to sea can become waterlogged and exhausted, drifting back to the beach to rest and dry out. This disturbing video shows the plight of those unlucky enough to become trapped by the high metal retaining walls in Midway’s harbor. The doomed birds drown in an entanglement of dead birds and plastic trash.

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

Exact Location on BlooSee

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food III – Looking into the Mirror

Chris Jordan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:36:51 +0000

Chris Jordan peels back the ribcage of a decaying albatross chick to reveal yet another belly-cargo of plastic. The ever present bottle cap is joined by a ballpoint pen cap, fishing float, and other assorted plastic junk from the human world that albatrosses forage from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, mistaking it for food.

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

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food II : Our First Dissection

Victoria Sloan Jordan — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:55:26 +0000

Stomach contents of another dead baby albatross are revealed as Chris Jordan cuts the bird open with scissors from a dissection kit provided by US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Filmed by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Midway Brushstrokes III

Jan Vozenilek — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:20:09 +0000

Young Laysan Albatrosses look wizened and world-weary in their grizzled down, but they have only just begun to test their wings on the wind and water, and the success of their journey remains uncertain.

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

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food

Jan Vozenilek — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:22:41 +0000

Brace yourself for this short video of the horrifying contents of the stomach of a dead baby albatross on Midway Atoll.

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

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Zoom lens? The Albatrosses of Midway

Jan Vozenilek — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:32:26 +0000

Seabird photography calls for telephoto lenses, camouflage clothing, and stealth movements, right?

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

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – First Impressions

Chris Jordan — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 10:38:21 +0000

Dear Friends and Followers of Midway Journey,

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.

A visit to Cortes Island

Jan Vozenilek — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:44:07 +0000

A walk on the shores of the remote and wild Canadian island of Cortes illustrates that plastic is polluting even the most remote and beautiful corners of our planet.

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

Midway Brushstrokes 2

Manuel Maqueda — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:29:57 +0000

In the midst of the tragedy of plastic pollution on Midway, Jan Vozenilek’s camera tuns, for an instant, to the triumph of life over decay.

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.

Plastic Water

Victoria Sloan Jordan — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:31:40 +0000

Scientists say that plastic now outweighs plankton 6 to 1 in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The lagoon of Midway Atoll is the perfect laboratory to witness all sizes of plastic slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. A variety of plastic washes up on the beaches daily, but not before some local fish make a meal of it.

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

Music by Christen Lien

A visit to Eastern Island

Manuel Maqueda — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:48:36 +0000

Midway Atoll is actually composed of two small islands, Sand Island -which is the largest and the only one inhabited- and Eastern Island, slightly over one mile long, and separated from Sand Island by a narrow channel that provides access to the interior of the lagoon.

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.

Midway through the lens of Kittipong Janthasang

Manuel Maqueda — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:32:39 +0000

A large percentage of the permanent residents of Midway are Thai workers, hired by a company called Chugach which provides many services to the island, from maintenance, to food and lodging.

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.

Midway Brushstrokes

Jan Vozenilek — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:01:53 +0000

Midway is a place suspended in time and in space. On this tiny island, the visitor is gently transported into a state of wonder which becomes a portal for instrospection. Cinematographer Jan Vozenilek has used his camera to sketch the subtle timelessness of Midway in a short video that we want to share with all of you.

Video by Jan Vozenilek. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.