SWFL photographer sheds light on water quality crisis with pictures

A Southwest Florida photographer is using photos to bring attention to the water quality crisis.

Men in gas masks are holding mermaids and showing the impacts of red tide.

“I said, ‘how would you feel about looking sick?”‘ asked Cape Coral photographer Tonya Barnes.

It’s no uplifting fairy tale, what these models posing as sick and dying mermaids are portraying in photos.

“You can see from the photos, I went dark,” Barnes said. “I went dark, and moody and dramatic.”

The images include people wearing gas masks, and it’s Barnes’ way of bringing awareness to the bigger picture of what’s going on in Southwest Florida.

“I was doing it as an artist but it became a whole different story once I finished them,” Barnes said.

It’s called Save the Sirens Project, and now her work is making waves on social media.

“It seemed like every single person was supportive of what I was doing and that was definitely a shock,” Barnes said.

Barnes and her crew took the photo shoots on beaches hit strong by red tide and where blue green algae is a growing problem.

“Everybody on my team got sick,” Barnes said.

She said the mermaid models help to create human emotion, representing the rising number of dead sea life washing up on our beaches.

“I hope they get sad enough that they feel that something needs to be done and something needs to change,” Barnes said.