STRETCHING out throughout an in any other case unassuming nook of Norfolk, Virginia, is the Lambert’s Level coal terminal. It’s the largest and fastest-loading facility within the northern hemisphere for dealing with and transporting this fossil gasoline, the combustion of which is a key industrial contributor to local weather change.
This gorgeous shot, titled Trigger and Impact and capturing the dramatic scope of the yard’s operations, was taken by photographer and environmental activist J Henry Honest from a airplane circling the ability, to “look over the fence” and see what’s hidden from view, he says.
Lambert’s Level handles a staggering 48 million tonnes of coal a 12 months. It will possibly offload the contents of 1200 rail automobiles of the stuff per day onto ships certain for the Atlantic. At its most, it may possibly maintain 6200 of those vans, a mere handful of which may be glimpsed right here, uniformly snaking alongside the tracks in a mesmerising show of our affect on, and destruction of, the world.
“After I noticed this terminal, I knew it will make an ideal image,” says Honest. “By making stunning pictures of horrible issues, I hope to create a dissonance in viewers that may immediate them to think about the impacts of what’s proven within the footage, and query the assumptions that make these issues potential.”
A choice of Honest’s photographs depicting human interventions in nature and the surroundings, together with this one, may be seen at his ongoing exhibition, Industrial Landscapes, on the ARTCO Gallery in Aachen, Germany, till 10 September.
Photographer J Henry Honest