Dumpster Landscapes
June 20, 2020
I love finding overlooked treasures, especially on the streets and in junkyards. There is great art in gutters, tire tracks, school crossings, and sidewalks, as well as in rusted out old cars, trucks, and dumpsters.
Dumpsters are particularly intriguing. Graphically, images found in them can be quite striking and beautiful. I find it poignant that dumpsters, the ordinary, utilitarian, and lowly objects that they are, can reveal such beauty. And it seems that the more disfigured they are the more decayed, rotted, defaced, gouged, scratched, splattered, buffed, and rusted the lovelier and more interesting they become. It is somewhat paradoxical and a good reminder that in life not all is as it seems.
This portfolio is made up of landscape images I have found while photographing dumpsters in Albuquerque’s back alleys and parking lots. Finding them has been a process of discovery, surprise, and delight.
Traditional landscape photographs can evoke a sense of place and express mood and emotion. We see it in the vista, which expands us and opens us up to the world around us. We are reminded that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. It is my hope that these images express a similar sense of emotion, wonder, and sense of place.