P3D Garbage

[jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Gabriel Jacob)]

Dr.T writes,
>This discussion reminded me of a lady that had bad luck entering club
>stereo competitions (never got any awards).  In talking with her, she
>confessed that her favorite subject for photography is "garbage".
>That got me thinking... Is there a way to photograph garbage and
>end up with an award winning picture?  Maybe, but this is hardly
>a subject inviting good photography.

Sorry George I "refuse" to agree! ;-) I am not a sanitary engineer
or have any special interests in garbage but I think ANY subject
can be interesting! Of course the problem is how do you begin to begin
to appreciate these kind of subjects without being in the particular
profession. That is the challenge presented in these competitions.

Personally I never thought of photographing garbage, even though like
you I like taking pics of everyday things. When you brought up garbage
of course I found this funny and amusing but it made me think of the
lady's predicament.

>Nature has given us so many colorful and interesting subjects.  Why
>would any one chose smelly, ugly garbage as the subject of their
>photography?  Now, going back to Peter's logic, I am sure that
>someone from the "refuse industry" can tell us many interesting
>stories, about how garbage is collected, processed, stored, etc.,
>all the challenges that humans face in disposing garbage, and,
>somehow, manage to bring these pictures into context and perhaps
>they might even become "interesting", given this new information.
>But, still, garbage is garbage, and making good stereo photography
>out of garbage is a great challenge.

It's not only the "refuse industry" that would be interested
in your garbage. Haven't you heard the expression, "One person's
garbage is another person's treasure". ;-) Seriously though,
archaeologist's in the not so distant future will be greatly
interested in this eras garbage and what it says about us. We're
creating time capsules everytime we put the trash out on the curb.

Another profession that is presently interested in your garbage
(other than sanitary engineers) are detectives or someone snooping
to find information on you. You'd be surprised at how well a picture
(better than 3-D!) someone can paint of you from your trash! 

Getting back to how to present garbage in a more palatable format,
here are some ideas.  How about.....

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1) ANOTHER MANS GARBAGE IS ANOTHER MANS TREASURE
This one has alot of possiblities. First obvious one is depicting
a Realist camera in a garbage can with all the other smelly trash
and flies (remember, bugs are interesting!) 

Another image that comes to mind is a poor person rummaging through
a rich neighborhood's trash for food.

>In most slide competitions (in club or PSA level) pictures are shown
>without any explanations. In Detroit, they don't even read the titles.
>So there are no explanations. The picture has to stand on its own.

Of course exactly the same picture with a different title would have
very different interpretations. See below. 

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2) PHOTO TAKEN WITH AN RBT
Exact same picture as in 1) but different title. Now of course this
would be a degrading picture because of the title. It would suggest
what a Realist is good for in the 90's. Word of note, this is not what
I think of the Realist but is just for examples sake. I love Realists.
Thank-you George. :-)

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So in conclusion, I think garbage can be very interesting and invoke
powerful feelings at the same time.

P.S. While I was writing this up, I was surprised someone else
was contemplating garbage.

Boris writes,
>Not really related to P3D, but to photography and art, I guess.

I think your right!

Gabriel, not Oscar (from Sesame Street)!



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