Running the Numbers: An Interview with Photographer Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan’s photography urges viewers to look at the world differently

Chris Jordan has been shooting the world around him with a unique vision for more than a decade, but it took quitting his job, traveling all over the country, and going broke to finally reach a wide audience—and make a big impact.

Jordan’s most recent project, Running the Numbers, An American Self-Portrait, offers a visual interpretation of the staggering statistics (two million plastic beverage bottles used in the U.S. every five minutes, 60,000 plastic bags used in the U.S. every five seconds, etc.) that fill the news. These larger-than-life composite photographs force the viewer into the uncomfortable terrain of self-reflection and personal responsibility.

After the jump Jordan talks about Running the Numbers, his other projects about American consumption, how he left the corporate world and went into debt to follow his passion, and what he has planned for the future.

(Above photo from Chris Jordan’s Intolerable Beauty series)

PopPhoto Flash: How long have you been shooting and how did you get started?

Chris Jordan: I’ve been photographing since around 1990, but it stayed as a hobby until I left my legal job and really committed myself. My earlier work was not as engaged in the contemporary world; in some ways photography was an escape for me back then. When I left my legal job I had no galleries or other prospects, but I knew I wanted to make a go of it as an artist. I thought I had saved up enough money to live on for two years, but large-format photography is expensive and I ran out of money within a few months. So we cashed out my 401k, and later my wife’s 401k, and slowly drained away our resources while I photographed and printed.

It was a scary time; there was a point where we ran out of money, still with no prospects, and I had to start thinking about getting a job to pay the bills. Then I received a call from the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles offering to represent my work. Paul and I scheduled an exhibit for February of 2005, and by the time that show opened, I was something like $75,000 in debt and living on maxed-out credit cards. Paul helped to launch my work nationally, and since then my work has been able to sustain itself.

PPF:  What kind of equipment do you use?

CJ: I used the 8x10 view camera format for many years, until I started Running the Numbers. For that series I wanted to evolve my process and escape some of the limitations of large-format photography, so I sold all my cameras and have been using a digital SLR since then.

PPF: Running the Numbers seems like a more focused version of Intolerable Beauty. Did Running the Numbers grow from Intolerable Beauty?

CJ: Yes, there is a progression there. Intolerable Beauty was my first attempt to capture the scale of our mass culture. As that project drew to a close at the end of 2005, I started considering what its limitations had been, and how I could drop more deeply into the message behind the images. I wondered if my next series might be more effective if I could somehow depict the actual quantities of things. I wanted to figure out a way to make images of things that people couldn’t otherwise see—the cumulative amounts that we know about only through statistics. To accomplish this required leaving behind the medium of “straight” photography and trying something different.

PPF:  How do you create these huge images with thousands or millions of things in them?

CJ: Each image takes some trial and error, sketches, false starts and so on, before I arrive at an idea that carries the kind of visual complexity that I am hoping for. My wife is a great help in this process; she comes up with about half of the best ideas, even though I get credit for them all. Once I know how I am going to depict something (like a vast landscape of plastic bottles for example), I collect a few hundred of whatever thing it is, and I take hundreds of photos of the same small pile, stirring the pile around between the exposures. Then I stitch together a few thousand images in Photoshop, keeping track of the quantities to make sure I am accurately depicting the statistic.

Paper Bags, 2007
60 x 80 inches

Depicts 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the U.S. every hour.
      
Detail                                                     Full Size

PPF: Were there any statistics that you wanted to depict, but couldn’t come up with a good concept?

CJ: There are a couple that I’ve wanted to do for a while but can’t think of a way to depict them meaningfully: the amount of carbon emissions daily in the U.S. and the amount of petroleum that Americans use. Those are two of the most frightening statistics of all, but the numbers are so huge that I can’t think of a practical way to depict them.

PPF: What kind of responses have you gotten to Running the Numbers, and are you still adding to it?

CJ: There are a few more images that I want to do in this series before I move to something new. And as for the public response to Running the Numbers, it has been just astonishing. For the last few months I have received 100-200 emails a day from people all over the world—teachers, museum curators, recyclers, environmentalists, writers, radio hosts and so on. I have had to hire a full-time studio manager just to help me handle the load. To me this response to my work is a reflection of the new movement that millions of people are finding themselves a part of: a worldwide shift in consciousness toward greater social justice and environmental stewardship. Visionaries all over the globe are writing books about it, teaching about it, making films about it, writing poems about it, and so on. Twenty years from now, our culture won’t even be recognizable from the way it is now. If my work can play a small part in that process, then that is all I could ever hope for.

Running the Numbers will be on display at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles September 8 to October 20.
—Kathleen Davis
Assistant Editor

Comments

[f. kwan zheng dao]

Thank you for posting this. I have never been so affected or inspired by an artist's work in my life. Were it not for your article, I would never have heard of the guy.

You've changed my life.

Thanks again for all y'all do,

f. kwan

[Kathleen Davis]

We thought his work was pretty inspired too, glad you liked it!