Friendly Neighborhood Dumpsters
November 22, 2021
Computer problems—which have kept me from my camera and this blog for far too long—are now (knock wood) over. I’ll pick up where I left off, with the tour I took of the neighborhood last month. One of the subjects I had to check out is my neighborhood’s dumpsters. Here’s what I found.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
10
11
12 Life imitates art.
13
14
Romancing Reality 
Welcome back. You’re still the queen of dumpsters, photographically speaking. Nice going with #13 and 14, which are a brightly entrancing abstract closeup and closer-up. Across the top of #3 I see two lines of what could almost be writing in an unfamiliar script.
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November 22, 2021 at 9:58 PM
Thanks, Steve. I have to say that I’m surprised so many people seem to favor the dumpster photographs. I thought the same thing you did about #3. But it’s just a long scratch.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:36 PM
Yay, dumpsters! 😃
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November 23, 2021 at 2:05 AM
Yes indeed, Peter. I think dumpsters are cousins to layered and torn posters. 😉
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November 25, 2021 at 6:36 PM
Fine set, Linda! 4,5 and 13 are my favs. 🙂
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November 23, 2021 at 2:11 AM
Thanks, Harrie. One of my friends who saw #4 thought it might look good with the photo rotated 90 degrees and the label cropped out. I think that could work, too.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:37 PM
Could be.. but the drippings would feel a bit unnatural then.. but you can try everything these days.. 🙃✋
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November 26, 2021 at 3:15 AM
Great work finding the beauty in the details of rust, fraying, piercing and various damage in otherwise unappealing dumpsters.
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November 23, 2021 at 3:03 AM
Thanks, Eric. The only unappealing dumpsters are, I say, those that are so new that they have no rust, fraying, piercing and various damage. I see too many of those.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:38 PM
Ha, ha. Right. I completely understand. Love the rust, wear and tear, underlying layers of paint, etc. Probably not so easy on the nose, though.
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November 25, 2021 at 8:18 PM
Interesting that you bring that up. I’ve been surprised at how little odor I detect at the dumpsters. Maybe I’m just too intent on photographing to notice.
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November 27, 2021 at 2:36 PM
Great pics from 1 to 14!
The 3rd one is a monster, the last one too
Gerhard
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November 23, 2021 at 4:38 AM
Thank you, Gerhard. Some friends read the third one as a landscape with reflections in a body of water. I confess I only saw a dumpster.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:38 PM
Wonderful works indeed! One better than the other.
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November 23, 2021 at 4:44 AM
Thank you, Friedrich. These are so much fun for me, and I was lucky to find all these on the same day.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:39 PM
just have to say these are really beautiful and show a keen eye for abstracting them from such subjects.
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November 23, 2021 at 8:39 AM
Mark, thank you. It’s a joy to find such unexpected beauty.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:39 PM
Love love love human figure in #1. Love all.
Happy thanksgiving! Ruta
We have a houseful. Everyone here! 😍
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November 23, 2021 at 9:08 AM
I saw a human figure in #1 also, Ruta. I know you are reveling in your family. Happy Thanksgiving to you and all of them.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:40 PM
#1 looks like a Johnny Friedlaender. He gets a lot of money for his art. My friends in Berea have been doing bird photography and now have a little business making notecards to sell that are in great demand. I’m thinking many of your dumpster pix would be beautiful framed. Just saying……
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November 23, 2021 at 10:04 AM
I wasn’t familiar with Johnny Friedlander’s work. Googling him just now, I see what you mean. One of his pieces that had some figures vaguely resembling the one in my #1 is going for $1200. So far I have resisted printing notecards with my photos, though I do use the photos in my version of eCards for friends’ birthdays. But printing for a commercial market sounds like boring work. I do have a framed dumpster print in my entryway, and I sold another to friends of my daughter. I’ll print some more for a show I will have here. I don’t plan to frame them, though. I will hang them from bulldog clips. If they get damaged from people touching them, so be it. I just want people to see the work. Thanks for your comments, Lynda.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:40 PM
Well, rust comes in different colours! May you be free of computer woes in the weeks and months ahead
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November 23, 2021 at 10:09 AM
Thanks, Sue. I think my computer problems are finally, as of yesterday, over. Geez. What a long time in computer hell.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:41 PM
Not fun
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November 26, 2021 at 3:15 AM
Good pictures! Very sorry to hear about the computer problems. 🙂
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November 24, 2021 at 5:34 AM
Thanks, Adrian. I know you have had your own issues with things computer-related lately. May we both have a good long break from such woes.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:41 PM
Computer problems are rubbish, but your dumpster images are cool! Great idea for a theme. 11 has an appeal to me, like an unhealed wound.
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November 24, 2021 at 4:38 PM
Thank you, Tone. I’m glad you enjoy the dumpsters. Number 11 is an unhealed wound, isn’t it. I especially liked the sort-of curl of the left side of that gash.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:42 PM
I love photographing rust and dilapidation, it often tells it’s own story or history with a bit of mystery also. It leaves one to wonder.
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November 25, 2021 at 9:28 PM
I agree with you, Tone. When things rust or fall apart, they usually do so in a one-of-a-kind way, or as you say, telling its own story.
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November 28, 2021 at 10:32 AM
Bummer about the computer issues and hopefully they are all in the digital dumpster for good now. Do any of your neighbors call you the crazy dumpster lady? If they do they don’t know the beauty they are missing that you capture.
The first looks like some inter-terrestrial humanoid form. So many interesting abstracts, several of which would not be guessed as dumpster sourced and the last mistaken for a feather.
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November 25, 2021 at 8:45 AM
I do wonder, Steve, what neighbors and other people think when they see me photographing a dumpster. Yeah, “crazy dumpster lady” is one of the things I wonder about. I’m glad you are able to enjoy their beauty. Thank you.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:42 PM
Beautiful images, Linda. Happy Thanksgiving!
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November 25, 2021 at 9:16 AM
Happy Thanksgiving to you, Ken! Thanks.
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November 25, 2021 at 6:43 PM
Only in your world do dumpsters become friendly, and beyond that, inspirational. These are beautiful, even grand, some of them. #1 is precisely reminiscent of a fine, abstract expressionist canvas. It’s funny that many of the qualities associated with that movement and its artists – the romanticism, the dramatized feelings, the exceptionalism – are far from what you are interested in aesthetically. But there it is, a nice conundrum. The composition in #2 with that sweeping pine needle is perfect. Since I’m in art history mode, #3 makes me think of a very dark Morris Louis drip painting – look him up if he’s not familiar and you’ll see what I mean. This one also brings stormy weather to mind, or maybe Chinese landscape paintings, I’m not sure why. It’s beautiful. #4 brings us back down to earth. The choice to cut that text off is smart, Linda. It’s as if you said, “Stop reading and look at these lovely drips!” I like the way #5 moves from vague to clear. Like a school of fish, some lost in the bubbles. SKipping to #8, there’s an ebullience in that rust: Happy New Year! 😉 Woo, there’s no #9! I like the slash in #11 very much, as well as the choice to keep what’s beyond totally out of focus. The slivers of light on the edges of the cut are cooly radiant. I think that’s what makes this image successful. #12 is fun. Did life imitate art or was it the other way ’round? Beautiful colors and patterns in the last two…I’m thankful for your art practice, Linda, it brings me enjoyment and keeps my mind fresh. Looking forward to more investigations near home, or wherever.
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November 26, 2021 at 1:18 PM
About #1: I was aware that the image resembled a human figure, though I can’t say that I tied it to abstract expressionism. Usually, I don’t like when my photographic images look like something they’re not. But in this case, I courted, with framing and cropping, that coincidence—just because I liked it. What is it Walt Whitman said? “Do I contradict myself?/ Very well then I contradict myself,/ (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” (“Song of Myself,” verse 51) Yeah, conundrum. I briefly considered removing the pine needle in #2 before taking the photo, but I’m glad I didn’t. I didn’t think of Morris Lewis paintings when I took #3, possibly because with my limited exposure to his work I’m most familiar with his more colorful paintings. (But maybe I’m thinking of Paul Jenkins.) Oops. Didn’t notice that I misnumbered the photos. “Cooly radiant”: I love the way you talk about my photographs. Thank you for all your comments, Lynn. They always help me see my work better.
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November 27, 2021 at 3:03 PM
I must admit that I don’t spend much time around dumpsters. But maybe I should! I am always struck by the variety in the images you derive from dumpsters, each one is a surprise. In several… 3,4, and 6, perhaps even 2, the colors and luster reminds me of your images of Leptothrix discophora films. I assume they are related? Nice collection, Linda.
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November 29, 2021 at 5:54 PM
Thanks, Mic. They are related, in a way. Both the dumpsters and the Leptothrix discophora bacterium deal in iron oxide. But as far as I know, the only color that relates the two is the orange color often seen beneath or beside an L. discophora film and of course on rusted steel dumpsters. See https://scienceandartpress.com/photo-gallery/. That page is loading painfully slow for me just now. I hope it’s just a local wii-fi issue. Anyway, I don’t think the luster is for the same reason, but I could always be wrong . . .
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November 29, 2021 at 7:41 PM
Really good set Linda. I like the spectrum of abstraction represented here: some of the images have a sense of scale (for example, the one with the pine needle) and others do not. What unifies all the pictures is your eye for design and color.
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December 3, 2021 at 1:15 PM
Thank you, John. I very often don’t indicate the scale, even in nature photographs. I don’t consciously think, “I don’t want to give a sense of scale” when I take a photograph. I guess I’m just zeroing in on design and color because those are what most attract me. It’s interesting that that comes across—at least to you.
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December 3, 2021 at 9:53 PM
I like to think that abstractions become semi-abstract when there’s cues in the picture that suggest what we might be looking at. That can be done by conveying a sense of scale or with any number of other clues (such as the holes in your dumpsters or graffiti). You have a nice range here of abstract and semi-abstract images.
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December 4, 2021 at 5:27 AM
Thanks, John. I think I need to get out and find some more dumpsters.
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December 4, 2021 at 10:44 AM