Crude Awakening: Photographer Captures Swimmers Covered in Oil

Marissa, Crude Awakening. Photo © Jane Fulton Alt.

Like most Americans, photographer Jane Fulton Alt is disturbed by the extreme amounts of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the broken BP pipeline. In her new collection, Crude Awakening, the artist expresses her sadness with a series of oil-slicked swimmers who appear as if they’ve just waded out of the muck.

As Fulton herself explains, “Living on the shores of Lake Michigan, I am acutely aware of the disastrous toll the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has taken on all forms of life, especially as our beaches opened to the 2010 swimming season. This environmental, social and economic catastrophe highlights a much larger problem that has inflicted untold suffering as we exploit the earth’s resources worldwide.”

Fulton’s images feature haunting profiles of oil-covered beach-goers peering into the camera, their faces graven and helpless as if reflecting the world’s current feelings of frustration towards one of the worst environmental disasters in American history — A girl emerges from the water with oil-slicked hair; A family, streaked in the dark goo, stands forlorn on the beach; A pregnant woman stares angrily while a man next to her cradles a young boy.

Some have commented that Fulton’s shoot is nowhere near the actual spill in the Gulf, and therefore it is disingenuous and inauthentic. But Fulton says this disaster is being felt no matter where you live.

“We are all responsible for leading lives that create demand for unsustainable energy,” she says on her website. “We are also all responsible for the solution and we must work together to protect the balance of life.”

What do you think? Do Fulton’s images seem inauthentic now that you know they were taken in Lake Michigan and not on the actual oily beaches of the Gulf? Or do you find them interesting regardless?