Below the Surface explores the depths of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, looking closely into what people do not see. This project investigates the intersection between environment, humanity, process, and image through the use of polluted water from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor as both a subject and medium. Black and white film photographs of the harbor’s industrial shoreline, decaying docks, urban runoff, and fragile ecosystems were all developed using water collected directly from the sites. The resulting images highlight the physical traces of contamination in the water through chemical distortions, irregular tonal shifts, stain marks and scratches left on the negatives, all unpredictably altering the image, which mirrors the city’s environmental decay.

Alongside these photographs are micrographs of the same polluted harbor water. Through a microscope, the lens revealed the water’s hidden components ranging from bacteria and chemical residue to trash debris and oil residues, which speaks to pollution on an unseen scale. These micrographs transform pollution into abstraction, exposing a visual world that exists beyond human sight yet profoundly influences it. By merging analog processes with scientific observation, Below the Surface transforms pollution from the subject to the collaborator as the harbor water’s toxicity becomes both destructive and generative by altering film chemistry and distorting the images.