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I'm very interested in how your choice of images and captions demonstrate the ways "place" becomes a slippery term when thinking through toxicity. Is the West Lake landfill just a landfill? No, far from it. It is both a physical and conceptual place, where memories, relations of proximity, and histories of labor, capital, and property are interwoven. I particularly appreciated your breakdown of the landfill's Google page, especially its reviews and titular image. What is the affective role of sarcasm, irony, and humor happening here?

I feel like image 1 might benefit from some contextualization (unless you find it purposeful to reveal it to the reader at a later moment). Where is it? Why are you interested in it? What does the technical wording on the sign mean? What do we gain from considering the landfill as an "anti-landscape?" Thinking of Joshua Reno's work, how does the liveliness of decomposition and the transformation of matter that happens underground/in a landfill complicate our understandings of them?

Image 1's black and white composition is notable, seemingly rendering the landfill timeless and/or a relic of past events and consumption. There is little sense of what happens underneath it's elaborate system of pipes and covers. Compared to Image 2, it's scale seems smaller or more intimate, as it is hard to tell how large the landfill is, even on the surface. Unclear if Image 1 is found or created. Image 2 provides an interesting contrast, both in scale and tone. It is in full color and gives a birds-eye view of the areas surrounding West Lake.

These images strikingly demonstrate how there is no one way to "know" toxicity - it is experienced from a wide variety of perspectives and scales. It also can rarely be contained... it leaks, no matter our efforts to stop it. 

This visualization introduces me to the concept of shadow places—boundary zones whose histories of violence and extractive capitalism are obscured. The photo offers a striking juxtaposition to this concept. It is a visualization that is dependent on the larger photo essay for context and interrogates the interlaced meanings of masculinity, leisure and pollution in a post-industrial coastal site. 

The caption layers multiple concept and ideas. It complicates my understanding of the inter-relationship between leisure (wetsuits) and industrial pollution. The connections drawn between surfing, male military personnel and the petrochemical industry were interesting if a little difficult to follow. I would love to see even more explicit connections made to the image

The image is a photo, a striking portait of a male surfer. It is a headshot, and appears to have been taken in a studio setting, with a seamless background and lit by portrait lighting (there appear to be two lamps reflected in his eyes). But this is a guess, since I cannot discern a background. The photo raises so many questions. If it is not a documentary shot, then it staged, the slag artfully (and effectively) applied. I understand the image to be illustrative of the caption and the issue it raises.

I don't know about enriching this image. It is an arresting image on its own. I would, however, love to see more context, a wider-shot, if it is a documentary shot. If not, I would also be interested in a side-by-side headshot of this (military) man in work clothes or uniform. 

The use of words like, "defunct" "postindustrial" "long history" against this image of a man in a wetsuit, his face covered in slag, renders the question of time and timelessness critical for making sense of the toxic histories of shadow places.  This visualization raises so many interesting questions for further exploration.

This visualization presents toxcities as gendered, paradoxical with narratives of powerful masculinity as well as vulnerabilties of men, and finally, attached emotional geographies (like nostalgia, leisure, etc.)