Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • A small hand mirror reflects a woman putting on dramatic makeup before a cultural show.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176508.JPG
  • A waitress stands at the door during a fashion show.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176479.jpg
  • A dog treat motivates a canine to exercise. Large pets dogs are illegal, so this woman exercises her pet inside on a treadmill in a pet spa.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176583.JPG
  • A young woman sits alone having a drink in a darkly lit bar.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176557.JPG
  • Flashing neon strobe lights electrify the dance floor creating a hypnotic scene at a bar scene attracting young people in Shanghai.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176545.jpg
  • A man awkwardly leans into his date at a popular, packed bar.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176545-1.jpg
  • Przewalski horses descend from 13 that were captured around 1900.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_2737069.jpg
  • A horse stares curious and watching humans who he has never experienced in the wild.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_2737057.jpg
  • A transgender sex worker straightens her hair extension while getting ready for work. She has her own room and lives with her aunt taking the bus nightly to the historic district of Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2708532.jpg
  • A BBoy dance group shows the influence of their indigenous background through colorful knitted masks. The Ecuadorian teens work out dance moves and perform on the streets in Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512509.jpg
  • A city bus squeaks to a stop at a park in North Quito and riders crowd in filling empty seats. Talia, carefully coiffed and a fresh coat of lipstick, steadies herself to  ride a bus to Quito's historic district where she will join her friends on streets where transgender prostitutes are allowed to work.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512394.jpg
  • Talia watches out to the window as she rides a city bus to Quito's historic district.  A transgender prostitute, she connects with other sex worker friends who look out for each other's safety. The city is trying to improve conditions for sex workers and giving them official identification cards.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512391.jpg
  • A bottled water plant in Hollis, Maine, has reduced the plastic in its half-liter bottles by 62 percent since 1994.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703535.JPG
  • A woman at cafe in Paris, France.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702859.JPG
  • A woman packages plastic toy cars.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702827.JPG
  • After sheets of clear plastic trash have been washed in the Buriganga River, they are spread out to dry to be sold to a recycler.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702813.JPG
  • In Dhaka, Bangladesh, laborers sort through a huge pile of discarded plastic bottles.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702767.JPG
  • A premature baby, with a plastic tube, in a hospital.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702765.JPG
  • Plastic bottles are shredded at a recycling facility in Valenzuela, Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702680.JPG
  • Children play on the shore of Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702659.JPG
  • Piles of trash pollute the Pasig River in the Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702624.JPG
  • Children catch tiny fish in a stream that comes from Manila Bay, goes through a fish hatchery, and comes out a slightly cleaner before it flows back into the bay. This is one of the few places I could take underwater photographs because the hatchery filters the water. A lingering memory from this trip will be that all our garbage goes SOMEWHERE and in the Philippines it goes to the most marginalized areas to sort, de-label and pile up creating a hazard.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2693944.JPG
  • Plastic bottles move down the conveyer belt at Poland Spring where between 345 and 425 employees working at the Hollis, Maine site oversee an array of computers and the water bottle production line. The 838,000 square-foot facility is the largest bottled water plant in the world, turning out about 80 million cases of water every year. Some of the machines fill 1,200 bottles per minute. The plant has reduced the plastic in its half-liter bottles by 62 percent since 1994.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2692111.JPG
  • Cattle in a pen at a feedlot adjacent to a grain elevator in Ingalls, Nebraska.<br />
<br />
The main purpose of feedlots is to help animals reach a certain weight as efficiently as possible. Through providing a steady, high energy diet and managing the cattle, they attempt to minimize health problems and stress. A criticism of feedlots is that they are overcrowded which creates more challenges for healthy animals.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481125.JPG
  • A fisherman with warped knees from the polluted waters of Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328035.JPG
  • Flamingos on Lake Turkana outside Elyse Springs.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2328022.TIF
  • A boy with a caught fish on the shore of Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327946.JPG
  • Main street of the Kakuma refugee camp.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327773.JPG
  • Three Mennonite kids are the last to get off the bus in Lazbuddie, Texas.<br />
<br />
Superintendent Joanna also has to drive the school bus for Lazbuddie schools but primarily is trying to figure out how to keep the school and community alive as they run out of water. When she started they had about 100 students now they have over 200 primarily from luring other communities children by offering an excellent robotics program and offering daycare. She had 90 days of water left for 16 families (teachers are housed at the school complex). The well got down to 15 feet of standing water. She got federal funds for a $360K well but who knows how long that will last. There are 88,000 wells around her in the TX panhandle that are poorly regulated and the water mining is affecting neighboring communities.
    MM8429_20151027_22560.tif
  • Photographers capture photos of a model looking through a car window at an automobile exhibition.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176561.jpg
  • A flash goes off as a young woman in a dimly lit blue-lit bar snaps a photo with her camera.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176558.JPG
  • A woman points while young people enjoy drinks and conversation in a crowded bar.<br />
Flashing neon strobe lights electrify night spot that attracts young people in Shanghai.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176546.jpg
  • A young woman sits on a barstool in a crowded bar in Guangzhou.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176547.jpg
  • A recycling plant in San Francisco, California.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702842.jpg
  • A woman brushes her teeth and washes from a bucket in the Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702628.jpg
  • Every year 400,000 to 600,000 sandhill cranes arrive in flocks to roost in the shallows of the Platte River, and during the day they are out foraging in the cornfields and doing their dances.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481070-5.TIF
  • Sandhill cranes fly in to roost in the shallows of the Platte River.<br />
<br />
Every year 400,000 to 600,000 sandhill cranes—80 percent of all the cranes on the planet—congregate along an 80-mile stretch of the central Platte River in Nebraska, to fatten up on waste grain in the empty cornfields in preparation for the journey to their Arctic and subarctic nesting grounds. <br />
<br />
Sandhill cranes among the world’s oldest living birds and one of the planet’s most successful life-forms, having outlasted millions of species (99 percent of species that ever existed are now extinct).
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481070-4.TIF
  • A pair of Mongolian wild horses, also known as Przewalski horses, are a breed that has never been domesticated.
    MELISSA FARLOW_RF4115_2737070.jpg
  • Surrounded by makeup and clothes, a transgender sex worker pins blonde hair pieces or extensions into her hair as she gets ready to go into Quito for work.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2708534.jpg
  • A transgender prostitute gives a warning to man harassing her on the street  while waits for clients in the historic district of Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2708529.jpg
  • Talia, a transgender prostitute waits for clients on deserted, city streets in the historic district outside a Quito hotel.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2708528.jpg
  • A transgender prostitute waits for clients in a room at a Quito hotel.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2708527.jpg
  • It is a slow night as a sex worker sits in the lobby of the hotel where she and other transgender sex workers rent rooms for 30 minutes. The city of Quito is working to organize sex workers to help their conditions.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2708526.jpg
  • Costumed women dressed in ethnic hats and dresses stand on La Ronda, one of the oldest streets in Quito where tourists often pass by.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512686.jpg
  • A Quito market worker spends a few minutes visiting her daughter at a day care center during the lunch break at her job. Child care facility is adjacent to the workplace which supports working families.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512538.jpg
  • A father skilled in BBoy dancing helps his son practice difficult move in a Quito park. A young, urban culture celebrates hip hop expressed through rhythmic music and acrobatic dance.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512518.jpg
  • BBoy and BGirl dancers, a young, urban culture expressed through rhythmic music and acrobatic dance. She's tough--the only female in the dance group that demands physical strength and agility to perform their routines.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512516.jpg
  • Members of a BBoy dance group warm up at rehearsal. The dancers mix indigenous influences with modern dance moves and practice their daring routines in the basement of a building in old Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512513.jpg
  • Talia blends into the diverse bus riders taking the city transportation to Quito's historic district. The transgender prostitute spends her mornings at home doing chores before headed to work in the busy, night life on the streets.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512393.jpg
  • Checking her make up, Talia, a transgender prostitute rides in the back row of a city bus headed to Quito's historic district.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512392.jpg
  • Talia's aunt grooms her hair before the transgender sex worker takes the bus to work in the historic district of Quito.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512387.jpg
  • Talia, a transgender sex worker, straightens her long, blonde, hair extension while getting ready for work. She takes care in her appearance, putting on makeup and fresh clothes before taking the bus to the historic district of Quito to work.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512386.jpg
  • A transgender sex worker talks with her aunt in a neighborhood where they live in Quito. Talia says her family threw her out because they didn’t accept her, but her aunt took her in.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512385.jpg
  • Sex workers talk with women trying to help them who work for Quito's Office of Social Inclusion.  They are issuing official identification cards to prostitutes and attempting to help improve their working conditions. They stand on the street near the Santa Domingo cathedral in the historic district.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512384.jpg
  • A transgender prostitute waits for clients outside a Quito hotel in the Colonial historic district. Workers look out for each other and are issued official identification cards from the city that is trying to improve their working conditions.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512383.jpg
  • Transgender prostitutes walk the streets in the historic district of Quito waiting for clients. Sex workers have a designated leader who speaks out for them with the Office of Social Inclusion for the city. They are issued official identification cards, part of the city's attempt to organize sex workers and to improve their working conditions.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512381.jpg
  • Talia, a transgender prostitute waits on an empty street in the historic Colonial district looking for clients outside a Quito hotel. <br />
Sex workers have a designated leader who speaks out for them with the Office of Social Inclusion for the city. They are issued official identification cards, part of the city's attempt to organize sex workers and to improve their working conditions.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2512380.jpg
  • Sandhill cranes fly in to roost in the shallows of the Platte River. <br />
<br />
Every year 400,000 to 600,000 sandhill cranes—80 percent of all the cranes on the planet—congregate along an 80-mile stretch of the central Platte River in Nebraska, to fatten up on waste grain in the empty cornfields in preparation for the journey to their Arctic and subarctic nesting grounds. <br />
<br />
Sandhill cranes among the world’s oldest living birds and one of the planet’s most successful life-forms, having outlasted millions of species (99 percent of species that ever existed are now extinct).
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481079.JPG
  • A bottled water plant in Hollis, Maine, has reduced the plastic in its half-liter bottles by 62 percent since 1994.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703534.JPG
  • A bottle washing plant so bottles can be re-used instead of recycled.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703517.JPG
  • A bottle washing plant so bottles can be re-used instead of recycled.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703511.JPG
  • A woman uses a  recycled glass jar to carry her liquids instead of using plastic packaging.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703504.JPG
  • A woman uses a  recycled glass jar to carry her liquids instead of using plastic packaging.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703503.JPG
  • A couple who live in public housing practice the zero waste lifestyle
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702866.JPG
  • A couple who live in public housing practice the zero waste lifestyle
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702865.JPG
  • A smokestack from a textile mill.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702861.JPG
  • A San Francisco recycling plant handles 500 to 600 tons daily.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702844.JPG
  • A recycling plant in San Francisco, California.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702843.JPG
  • Plastic pinwheels and balloons for sale.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702823.JPG
  • Plastic recycling in Bangladesh.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702819.JPG
  • Soft drink bottles with plastic straws on a street in Dhaka.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702775.JPG
  • In Dhaka, Bangladesh, laborers sort through piles of discarded plastic bottles at a recycling center. Plastic waste and global warming are companion threats. People’s need for clean drinking water increases as temperatures rise. The size of this center is equivalent to three football fields. In the winter when I made this photograph, only one of the football fields was filled with plastic waste. In the summer when everyone drinks more bottled water because of the excessive heat in Bangladesh, all three football fields are filled with plastic waste. The slough next to this informal factory is filled with the overburden that is either shoved away or is blown by the wind into the neighboring watershed.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702769.JPG
  • A premature baby in a hospital.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702733.JPG
  • A premature baby in a hospital.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702732.JPG
  • A premature baby, with a plastic tube, in a hospital. This hospital is next to the Dharavi slums where his parents live and work as plastic pickers. Humans can be born into plastic and die into plastic as seen in another photo in this series that shows a plastic pickers plastic coffin.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702731.JPG
  • Plastic sorting in the Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702722.JPG
  • A trash collector on Jacinto-Vitas street in Baseco area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702720.JPG
  • A trash collector on Jacinto-Vitas street in Baseco area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702713.JPG
  • Children play on the shore of Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702701.JPG
  • Children play on the shore of Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702698.JPG
  • Plastic bottles are shredded at a recycling facility in Valenzuela, Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702682.JPG
  • Children play on the shore of Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702667.JPG
  • Manila Bay in the Philippines is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702664.JPG
  • Children catch fish in Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702662.JPG
  • A family wades in Manila Bay with their dog through pollution from household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702657.JPG
  • Children play on the shore of Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702655.JPG
  • Brown water drizzles from the faucet on a depleted cattle water tank on a farm in Texas.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481179.JPG
  • Sandhill cranes fly in to roost in the shallows of the Platte River. They do a courtship dance that begins with a bow.<br />
<br />
Every year 400,000 to 600,000 sandhill cranes—80 percent of all the cranes on the planet—congregate along an 80-mile stretch of the central Platte River in Nebraska, to fatten up on waste grain in the empty cornfields in preparation for the journey to their Arctic and subarctic nesting grounds. <br />
<br />
Sandhill cranes among the world’s oldest living birds and one of the planet’s most successful life-forms, having outlasted millions of species (99 percent of species that ever existed are now extinct).
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481110.TIF
  • An irrigation system waters a field of corn and a few sunflowers.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481059.JPG
  • An irrigation system waters a corn crop in Nebraska.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481057.JPG
  • Boys collect water into buckets from Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327945.JPG
  • Boys pour water into buckets from Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327944.JPG
  • El Molo men, deformed from consuming the waters of Lake Turkana.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327843.JPG
  • A Turkana service at the Catholic mission in Lokichar.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8259_2327816.JPG
  • Fire eater entertains at a festival in the Andes mountains.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_2512745.JPG
  • A construction worker is covered with paint splatters while working on updating a Colonial building in historic old city.
    RANDY OLSON_04319_2512742.JPG
  • Children collect small fish near Baseco Beach at the north tip of the Baseco slum area in Manila, Luzon, Phillipines. This beach is covered with trash from the Pasig river and other sources. Trash is visible on all edges of Manila bay but it is particularly bad here.<br />
<br />
The Pasig River  runs through metro Manila and empties into Manila Bay at Baseco. The river carries 63,700 tons of plastic waste annually into Manila Bay. Sixty percent of all waste in Manila Bay is plastic.
    MM8515_20171104_07792.tif
  • Sand Hill Cranes are the grassland birds of the great plains that migrate from Siberia to northern Mexico. But their main migratory path converges over the high plains Ogallala aquifer. Sand Hill Cranes roost here because the Crane Trust has re-engineered this part of the river back to the Pleistocene. This is one of the few places left where they can all co-mingle. The migration fans out across the north and then hits this area near Kearney Nebraska on the Platte River and then the migration fans out again to the south when they leave.
    MM8429_20160314_33391.tif
  • Trash pickers sort and make piles to burn broken plastic umbrellas to get the lumps of plastic and salvage the metal.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702764.JPG
  • Ten Hectare beach at the north tip of Baseco slum area is covered with trash including used toothpaste tubes from the Pasig River and other sources. Trash is visible on all edges of Manila Bay but this area is particularly impacted. A stream running from a fish hatchery is filtered, but flows back into Manila Bay. The bay has very little visibility–somewhat the consistency of motor oil.  <br />
<br />
A lingering memory from this trip will be that all our garbage goes SOMEWHERE and in the Philippines it goes to the most marginalized areas to be sorted, de-labelled and piled up. In this culture plastic is money, and artisanal industries are located around the dumps as well as the tourist areas where plastic trash comes out of casinos and hotels. Children push aside used toilet paper to find bits of plastic that net 5 pesos a kilo. Junk shops take it to plastic processors and make 22 pesos a kilo. It takes about 16 one liter Coke bottles to weigh one kilogram. The Philippines is the third largest contributor to ocean plastics with 500,000 tons a year.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702700.JPG
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