From the steel mills of Port Talbot to a children’s playground in Delhi, researchers hope their photos will help people understand the impact on their lives.
We know that the atmospheric pollution surrounds city dwellers, but what difference would it make? if we could see it? By combining digital light painting with air pollution sensors, researchers and artists have found a way to make visible the invisible.
Their photos highlight the health risks of skies full of particles in Welsh, India and Ethiopia.
“The atmospheric pollution is he main environmental risk factor on a global scale,” says Professor Francis Pope, an environmental scientist at the University of Birmingham, who led the project with artist Robin Price. “At paint with light To create powerful images, we provide people with an easy-to-understand way to compare air pollution in different contexts.”
How can you photograph air pollution?
The suspended particles are the way of deadliest air pollution for the human being. Its key components are sulfates, nitrates, ammonia, sodium chloride, black carbon, mineral dust and water.
To capture the tiny particles on film, the team managed to low cost air pollution sensors to measure mass concentrations. They then used the real-time signal from the sensors to control a set of Mobile LEDs programmed to flash more rapidly as the concentration of suspended particles increased.
You take one long exposure photography in which the artist moves the LED array in front of the camera and the flash becomes a point in the photograph.
The artist cannot be seen in the photo because he is moving, but the flashes of light from the LEDs are visible because they are bright. How many more luminous points appear in the photographs, elderly is the concentration of suspended particles.
What do photos reveal about air pollution?
The researchers’ conclusions show that the air pollution varies drastically from one place to another. In Ethiopiathe concentrations of PM2.5 (fine particles) were up to 20 times larger in a kitchen that he used biomass stoves than in the immediate vicinity outdoors.
In the India, two playgrounds located just 500 kilometers apart received the digital light painting treatment. The one in the urban area of Delhi It presents PM2.5 values at least 12.5 times higher than those measured in a playground in rural Palampur.
Large variations in air pollution were also detected in the surroundings of the steelworks of Port Talbot (Welsh). Here, air quality monitoring and luminous painting at dusk in summer measured PM2.5 concentrations in the range of 30-40 mg/m3, when the hourly mean value was 24 mg/m3.
“By providing a visual understanding of air pollution accessible to people who do not necessarily have a scientific background, the light painting approach can demonstrate that managing air pollution levels can have a significant impact on everyday life of people,” says photographer Price.
Is air pollution dangerous?
Air pollution is considered one of the main threats to both the environment as for the Human health and one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
Suspended particles have multiple repercussions on physical health and are responsible for diseases such as heart disease, strokes and cancers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the 99% of the world’s population breathes polluted airwhich causes approximately seven million premature deaths a year worldwide.
The situation is especially difficult in Asiawhere air pollution continues to be a serious problem in countries like India and Chinadespite various policies and measures on air quality.
The African countries have also experienced a significant deterioration in air quality in the last five decades. To raise awareness about this deadly problem, the photography project ‘Anthropocene Air‘ has been exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles, Belfast and Birmingham.
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