"The End of Night"
http://jimrichardson.photoshelter.com/#!/portfolio/C0000mDBCm8MoO1o/G000099wq_o8qI8M
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/light-pollution/richardson-photography
The photo essay I chose is titled "The End of Night." The photographer was Jim Richardson and it ran in the November 2008 issue of National Geographic. What I enjoy about the stories that Richardson covers is that they are often issues that not many people know is an issue. With the light pollution story, he is drawing attention to an problem that people interact with in different ways. I have personal experience with this.
I took a group of international students to Las Vegas during Thanksgiving Break in 2014. Of the six students, five were from China and one was from Lithuania. I planned our route to make sure we arrived in Las Vegas at night. I did this because I was so impressed with the dazzling lights the first time I went to Vegas. So we arrived in Vegas late and drove down "The Strip." I remember making a comment about how bright the lights were and the response I got was "Yeah, it's almost as bright as Shanghai." I was disappointed that they didn't respond the same way I did when I first saw the bright lights of the big city.
Fast forward a few days.
We arrived in my home town after driving about 24 hours from Vegas. We arrived just after sunrise and slept for a few hours before driving back to Columbia to pick up the eighth member of our group and started the three hours back to my hometown. We stopped at the mall on the way back so they could buy gifts for my parents to thank them for letting seven international students crash in their house for a few days. We arrived at my parents house for the second time that day. It was after the sun had set. I walked to the front door and unlocked it. I turned around to see that no one was following me. I look back to the driveway and everyone was standing and looking at the stars. They were completely amazed at how many stars they could see from my driveway. One of my friends from China commented that it was the first time she can really say she has seen the stars. To me, this was no big deal. The stars are there, basically, every night. (my town has about 45-50 people)
If people live in a city their entire life, they might not understand the issues with light pollution. However, people who don't live with light pollution would notice it rather quickly if it began to encroach into their area. With Richardson's coverage, it dealt with the effects of light pollution on wildlife and their patterns in life. Some people might not even know what light pollution is.
I spoke with Richardson at the 2014 Missouri Photo Workshop. He told me that he is concerned with the coverage of certain events and what the problem is with breaking news. He said that the breaking stories of tomorrow are already happening today. He also said that photographer's spend to much time focusing on the big, breaking issues because they are easier to identify and tackle. However, there are plenty of issues that the public needs to be made aware of before they become a crisis.
