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The Earth is an Environmental crime scene. The scenes in the shots this week are not. They are just things people have cast out as rubbish and the council have slapped bright yellow stickers on them. Their phrase is overly dramatic for the situations you see before you and is terminology that should be reserved for what is currently occurring on this planet.

Exactly two years ago in April 2017 I posted up photographs from the same series to highlight the fact that no-one was talking about climate change. It had practically disappeared from the news and all attempts to deal with it had evaporated into thin air. Today the situation is even worse  and still almost nothing is being done and still people don’t want or can’t talk about it. At least it is being reported again in the media, mainly as a result of  extreme weather becoming the norm and massive amounts of scientific data showing that the planet is warming at an accelerated pace even the most pessemistic predictions didn’t come close to. And yet, it is still not making headlines and is still way down on most publication’s and people’s agendas.

The Extinction Rebellion (the XR for short) have also done a great job in the last six months of getting the press to report their actions and have successfully managed to get it back on the discussion table and yet still it hovers way below celeb gossip, country politics, box sets and people’s own social media output. The question is, how do reduce the dominance of trivialities in our lives and how do we get it to the forefront of conversations? We live in the ultimate era of outrage, where ever 5mins someone is losing their shit over some insult to their identity group or whatever and yet the biggest outrage of them all, the fact that we are allowing a tiny percentage of people to render our entire planet to the point of total dysfunction because of the fallout from their industrial activity? The air we breathe, the oceans we swim in, the crops we eat, everything is being contaminated by a fraction of our species purely for their own profit and we are all allowing them to do it. Shouldn’t we be getting on our high horses about that more than anything?

Apparently only 100 companies (almost all fossil fuels) are responsible for over 70% of ALL emissions. There is a campaign to make them liable for ecocide which is what they are absolutely guilty of. They are destroying everything and nothing is being done to stop them. We must get our governments to stand up to them. To reject their money. To invest in green new deals instead. They spent hundreds of billions bailing out the banks in 2008. Does our environment not deserve to be bailed out as well? Isn’t that worth it more than saving the necks of the wealthy and the utterly irresponsible? So why aren’t they doing it? They could invest in emission free energy and infrastructure which woud reinvigorate the economy and the climate at the same time. They could put us on a path towards a solution instead of continuing to ignore the problem which will ultimately be our downfall.

I watched the film Bohemian Rhapsody this week and it culminates in the Live Aid show, which shows how powerful people can be when mobilise together to initiate positive change and come to the aid of those who need it the most. What I can’t quite work out is why this same spirited action is not happening with climate change? This is a potentially much more dangerous situation that affects literally everyone but  people just don’t seem to want to engage with this very real disaster which is already well underway. Is it because it feels too big or too complicated to tackle? The Ethiopia crisis was horrendous but simple. They need food. We raise money and send them food. Job done. The climate situation doesn’t require donations, it  requires a much greater sacrifice – we have to change everything we do in order to even have a chance in hell and that’s maybe the problem? But if we don’t  deal with it now our problems will be so much worse and for generations after us, infinitely more so.

I know you might read all this and think its too much to take on but even the acknowledgement of the situation would be a start. Just by admitting we need to deal with this above and beyond everything else and just talking about it would be the first step towards a better future. As I speak to people about this I feel them glaze over, I see the shutters coming down, and as I write these words I feel the same. That is why being around the people who have also joined the XR is a relief in many ways, as you can talk about it, you don’t have to worry about mentioning it for fear of being brandished a downer, a mood hover or a kill joy. You can cry out to the ‘elephant in the room’ and help initiate a stampede which will waken those in power to the needs of all of us to do something tangible, to actually deal with the problem, not just shunt it away.

The XR are gathering together at 11am on Monday at 5 key places in London: Marble Arch, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, Parliament Square.

See this link here for more details: http://tinyurl.com/y2mhsg5n

Its time to stand up and be counted!

Love and Rage!

Sgt. Rebel says it’s time to stand up and be counted! The Extinction Rebellion are mobilising on April 15th to shutdown London in order to declare a climate emergency as we desperately need to treat it as one. All other avenues have failed and all that is left is civil disobedience, the only course of action that, historically, has initiated change. The Rebellion have no interest is disruption for disruption’s sake. They just know that peaceful protest alone isn’t be enough. So you might not agree with their methods but everything else has failed to make a difference in any significant way.

And remember, if you are anti-extinction, you are already in the Extinction Rebellion. This organisation is not just one group of people, or a type of person, or a single course of action, this affects the entire human race. And we need now, more than ever,  to join together as a species and accept the reality of our situation and begin our journey towards a sustainable future. It is not too late but the time for ignoring it is well and truly over and the longer we do nothing the worse it gets and will continue to do so until we get our heads out of the sand and demand our governments implement genuine and drastic measures that will  match the severity of the problem and not just pay lip service to it. And sooner we begin the sooner we can start to undo what we have done and prepare our world for the next generations who deserve at least what all previous generations were given, a working planet they could live on.

https://rebellion.earth

Love and rage!

Sgt. Rebel

(If you can’t see the youtube vid above please click here: https://youtu.be/SVVoaFDYC0o (please share this link or repost via instagram here: link )

Do the women in this week’s photographs have anything in common? No, nothing at all other than it is most likely that you made a judgement on what kind of person they all were based on how they looked. We think we  have a good gage of people based on what we are presented with but can we really tell what is behind the mask?

We constantly use visual cues to form an opinion on someone when, in fact, they are rarely good indicators. We also use membership of massive groupings to suggest further insight, when again, they are rarely accurate in revealing what a person is actually like. Gender, race and age are the most often used generalisations  when describing someone but they don’t reveal what someone behaves or thinks or emotes, which are really the most important facets of a human being and yet we still think they are good ways to ascertain what a person is like . In contrast, when we think of our own personalities, we tend to incorporate a complex array of  factors that have created the person we are and yet for others, we  over-simplfly their existence into belonging to some very basic and pretty gi-normous collectives.

For example, we talk about women are this, men are that and so on and so on, but how can we possibly explain the depth and diversity of our intricate minds by belonging to a group that incorporates 50% of the entire population of Earth? What can we possibly have in common with 3.5 billion people apart from our genitalia? It is also very evident that our personalities are not that affected by age either. We stay relatively the same on the inside throughout our lives, its just the outer casing that deteroriates and yet so we often judge people based on how old they are when its probably one of the least relevant aspects. As if wrinkles, or the lack of them, somehow revealed how a person was? Race is obviously another utterly inaccurate way to assign behavioural patterns to someone.

And so it seems a shame that our personality traits could not somehow be manifested visually somehow. If you were a kind person, maybe you would always have a mole on your right cheek, or if you were loyal you would have massive bushy eyebrows. Or maybe if you were a total dickhead you would have one of those noses that looked like a penis. Unfortunately external features do not indicate what’s on the inside which is why we are mostly making hugely inaccurate assumptions about people. I chose the women in these photographs as they had very strong looks  and were the most likely to generate a thought process which carried a pre-conception of the type of person they were. But how could we possibly know just based on what we saw?

The most miserable face could be concealing a warm and generous character. A smile could be hiding a mean demeanour. And pretty on the outside ain’t always pretty on the inside. But what else is there to go on? We are all guilty of this. Its not even a personal failing as everyone does it. We cannot stop our brains from processing people like this but we can be aware that it’s a fundamentally flawed system and as long as we accept that, we can carry on, all the while hoping no-one is doing it to us…which inevitably they will be.

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Shots of people enjoying themselves (or not) in the summer sun this week. People are occasionally described as having a ‘sunny disposition’ which has an infinitely greater impact on our personal wellbeing than a stretch of decent weather. For some, no amount of sun is going to alter their inner state. We can only be lifted so much by our external environment. The internal workings of our mind will always dominate, no matter what we are surrounded by. Discuss.

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

This week has featured some creepy faces found on my travels in the lead up to halloween. Above is Hannibal Lecter made entirely out of cherrios and is currently hanging on the wall at the Cereal Killer Cafe in Brick lane. Although this is genuinely disturbing it is nowhere near as horrifying as paying nearly a fiver for a bowl of cereal. I didn’t by the way. I was merely passing through. Some people are willing to pay this much but I associate cereal with the cheapest food you can eat when you are broke so it goes against every grain in my body (and probably in the cereal itself – haha. ok, shit pun but so is the title of their shop so just joining in really) to fork up for those prices (although a spoon would probably be preferable -okay, I’ll stop).

Me and my camera in someone else’s town, my united states, my downtown fresno

To see the full gallery ” I believe in Downtown” please click here. All of the photographs in this gallery were taken on a single day.

I will be producing a very limited edition one off run of only 5 signed hardback large square photography books (30 x 30cm) featuring these pictures. If anyone is interested please email babycakesromero@gmail.com.

Downtown Fresno is a surreal place. Stunning art deco architecture, immaculately clean and pristine  and yet eerily empty. As you walk around there is almost nobody around except for a few homeless people and the odd shopper, mostly from the poorer Hispanic community taking advantage of discount stores. It feels like an abandoned city and in some ways it is.

So the story goes, property developers, rather than pay top rate for real estate in the existing city of Fresno, decided to instead buy up cheap land all around it and build strip malls and homes on the outskirts. They provided residents with everything they would need without having to go into town and gradually people stopped going and soon enough it became a relic of yesteryear, a forgotten place. Buildings that once created awe now just create shadows in the hot Californian sun. Ghosts of the past now walk where the living do not. One of the more unreal moments I saw whilst there, which personified the experience,  was watching a preacher preaching to no-one in the middle of a massive empty square. (featured last week. pic here) Could he see former congregations before him or was it just a prayer to the Lord above to return life to this lost city?

Fresno itself gets a bad rap for being a place where there is not much going on and not a lot to do but that is largely a result of the City curtailing to the above mentioned land acquisitions and choosing profit over people, ignoring the needs of a community beyond food and shopping. Culture that once existed has been left to ruin. All that is left are closed stores and loan places and those without homes, who, up and until recently, used the pedestrianised walkways of Downtown as a place to live. And now even that has been taken away from them as they have just converted the main walkway back to a vehicle accessible road.

There is a project in place called “I believe in Downtown” which is an attempt to entice people back to this area but it sadly does not look like it has been very successful. It is the absence of people which is so noticeable and you feel like you are more likely to run into a zombie than a human being as the notion that you are walking through a post-human city lingers in the sparseness of life.

Walking around the majestic buildings and forgotten theatres, now paralysed by inactivity you can’t help but imagine how vibrant it must have been compared with the comatosed emptiness of the present. Yet somehow it feels like a a glimpse into our future rather than a nostalgic vision of the past…

I can see the Grenfell tower as I turn the corner of my street. I see it everyday. Up until yesterday I have never given it much thought. It is very unlikely I will ever look at it again and not think of the tragedy that has happened there. I don’t really know what to say. It is just beyond horrific. My thoughts and condolences are with the victims who have lost their lives and homes.

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

To doo or not to doo doo, that is the question…actually the question is why are my pictures conspiring against me to connect when I am trying to be all random and stuff? I just noticed that all the photographs featured this week contain words or text of some description. Coincidence? Perhaps or are they trying to tell me something? This was not my doing. Well, maybe it was my sub-conscious/unconscious mind grouping shots out of habit which is highly possible or my conscious mind has searched and found a connection that was not intended. (yes my brain is a battleground with few victors)

The great paradox of living is that our minds crave organisation and structure in a universe that doesn’t supply it. I have previously sought out patterns and themes in my work as felt it highlighted observations about human behaviour & the world around us. But is any of it actually there? Its so hard to say when we live in a world of our own perception. We also project so much and our brains only really make us aware of things that are somehow relevant to us. I have touched on this before but its a head fuck as its difficult to know what is true meaning and what is imposed. The real truth is we will never know as reality is  no more than another construct we have created to give us peace of mind amidst a spiral of endless chaos. A tough pill to swallow if ever there was one…(apologies if you are metaphorically choking right now)

All I know is that our brains are desperate to find connections and meaning in everything so that things can be correctly filed and cross referenced, they just want to organise the information coming our way and they don’t really care if its true or not. Its all got to go somewhere.

However, all this searching for meaning and assigning patterns and connections are really just a smoke screen to hide the real chaos that surrounds us. Can we not live without meaning? Or is that too much for us to bear? Maybe. It would explain the creation of all schools of thought, philosophy and religion.

Ultimately, and despite the indifference of the Universe itself, we feel everything is somehow connected and maybe it is. Every single entity is made up of connecting atoms so maybe we are right after all..who can really say but I am going to continue celebrating randomness for now, regardless of what my sub-conscious mind wants to do.

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london