Trash Talk with Michael Crawford-Hick in Australia

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I was tasked by an open request from my stock photo agency to get some photographs of Cronulla, a town 25km south of Sydney, Australia. As I was there I decided to do this. I walked down the coast after Cronulla just 10 minutes of gently walking I came across Gordon’s Bay a small inlet I had to walk around to continue my coastal walk. In the clearing I saw this jewel in the crown through the trees, I saw calm sea in this inlet that had an assortment of tropical colours from blues, to turquoise, to greens it looked idyllic. I had to go down and see more. I ventured towards the waters edge. It was then I was disturbed to see a sea of waves that were filled with plastic debris amongst the naturally occurring plant & natural debris you expect to see in the water.

My heart sank, when I saw mankind had done to this amazing little cove I thought I had found paradise, in fact was full of rubbish. The people who were swimming and playing in this area, seemed oblivious to this fact. From the photographs you can see the clarity of the water. Now I love photographing waves, so decided to photograph these waves filled with rubbish, I normally try to photograph waves without the rubbish, but this time I decided to capture exactly what I saw, so that the world an see the mess we are really in.

The irony of it all, it was in a conservation area, the plants, fish and shellfish were protected with rules on their capture. There may be signs up to says this fact, but is anyone doing anything about the cleaning of this little piece of paradise, I doubt it based on what I saw.

I am a passionate photographer who’s mission is to photograph the worlds ocean, lakes, & rivers showing their magnificent beauty and their bad side of being near mankind, e.g. rubbish and pollution that affects us all. It is not man made wars that will kill us, but the plastic in our wildlife, birds, fish and other creatures that we rely on to live e.g.”The Food Chain” this is poisoning our everyday lives if we continue as we are. It is happening silently without us realizing it.