Organic Portraits: John F. Cooper

This exhibition features New Jersey photographer John F. Cooper’s Organic Portraits series.  

“From the beginning,” Cooper explains, “the intent of the Organic Portraits project was to create a series of timeless and fundamentally beautiful images that would create awareness for—and help preserve—the world’s rainforests. In the 1950s, around the time I was born, about 15 percent of Earth’s landmass was covered with (oxygen-generating and carbon-dioxide storing) rainforests. As of the time of this book’s publication, fewer than 70 percent of those forests remain. Luckily the current rate of deforestation has slowed dramatically but that doesn’t mean our destructive activities will be curtailed; more of these crucial ecosystems could disappear by the close of this decade. It is my belief they benefit the world more by being present rather than existing only in photographs, videos and the annals of history. The aim of this project is to drive home the understanding that our rainforests— the lungs of our Earth— are both vital and in dire need of protection.”

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website