Running the Numbers

A photographic look at statistics

Chris Jordan Photographic Arts - Click on the "Running the Numbers" photo to see this series.

This series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on.... Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes.

Here's a couple samples of Chris' work.

Plastic cups


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450,000 cell phones are "retired" daily in U.S.


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