Elisabeth Hoff released 'Drowning in Plastic', a haunting series of images to highlight the Great British Beach Clean, an annual event organised by The Marine Conservation Society.
Elisabeth Hoff is a photographer, director, and art director creating high end imagery for clients in the UK and abroad. Prior to this, she studied Marine Biology and grew up sailing around the world with her family. Inspired by her background she turned her lens to the single-use plastics that are clogging our oceans.
Working in collaboration with the Marine Conservation Society the images and film were released to encourage people to sign up and get involved with The Great British Beach Clean, that took place in September 2019.
Each image focusses on a single-use plastic such as plastic bags, bottles, cutlery, balloons, and glitter. Using her skillset as a fashion photographer, Elisabeth wanted to do a “beautiful take on a dirty subject”. The series shows models swimming through water - either surrounded or entangled in these single-use items. The pollutants’ appearance changes to almost become a representation of the wildlife in our oceans, and therefore reinforces the fact that without action, by 2050 there could be more plastic in the sea than fish.
The Great British Beach Clean is an annual event organised by The Marine Conservation Society which calls on the British public to volunteer a couple of hours of their time to help clean a 100m section of beach, and record the litter that they find. In 2018, 494 beaches were cleared by a record 15,000 volunteers, clearing an incredible 8550 kilos of litter - meaning that 600 items of litter were found on every 100 meters of the UK coastline.
The project was featured in various international news sites including The Times and Daily Mirror - UK, Euronews and MillionAIR - Europe, Mundiara - Spain, Naturala - Hungary, Yahoo Style - Germany, The Herald - Scotland, Huffington Post - Greece, Loeil de la Photographie - France, Canada News - Canada, and Sina - China.
"We all know that an image can say a thousand words - and also has the power to make great impact. But not if nobody sees it. Thanks to Blah PR my “Drowning in Plastic” series and awareness campaign for the Marine Conservation Society has been a massive success with media coverage I could only have dreamed of. As a result we have made an impact on getting volunteers signed up to join The Great British Beach Clean, and inspired people to take personal action with regards to the ocean plastic pollution issue. And we also have the stats to prove it. Thank you Mark!" Elisabeth Hoff
““We were delighted with the coverage that Mark was able to secure for our Great British Beach Clean, using Elisabeth Hoff’s wonderful imagery. He was a pleasure to work with, and with his help, we achieved one of our biggest ever events with thousands of volunteers helping to clean up beaches over that weekend”. Nicola Greaves, Head of Marketing, Marine Conservation Society