There, again, in my peripheral vision. She does the half-body twist, giving me the look for the second time. I turn, catching her; it’s not one of pity, disbelief or even curiosity. No, this look asks “Why is he photographing that?“.
And I understand. It’s ‘just recycling’. It’s ‘not exciting’.
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I remember then telling myself “Sometimes you’ve to make a lot of bad pictures to get to the good ones.“. That’s true – but even as the thought coalesced, I knew it didn’t apply here. It was… I mean…
…
Look, I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed, and I wanted to justify my standing, photographing, in a forgotten corner of EIT.
Truth is, I wasn’t photographing the bins on a whim. While doing my run-around of EIT I happened on them, and, as I stood there, hands in my pockets, I had this sense of order. Of forms, lines and colors just right. I had to come back.
You know, sometimes I wonder what it is I see. Do I imagine colors as brighter, lines more dynamic, contrast more pronounced? Why is it that this processing reflected what I felt better than the straight image?
What does this say of me as a photographer?
I think it works very well. The simple shapes created by the arrangement of objects and colours form an eye-catching image.
The exagerated perspective makes it clear that we are looking down. And that’s exactly what we do to items when finished with them. We look down upon them as garbage.
Also, I think the illustrated look reinforces the graphic nature of the subjects. Recycling bins we associate with the recycling icon as well as simple illustrated guidelines. The discarded coke and pizza box also have these very simple, graphic associations.