Ordinary Objects

This is part of a series I’ve been working on – photographing ordinary objects we pass by on the street every day but take for granted. They are things we see but don’t see, and they may well vanish, like pay phones, mailboxes, and newspaper vending machines, before we realize they’re gone. Pay phones are all but replaced by the cellphone. Newspapers as a physical object may cease to exist thanks to the internet, and along with them the newspaper box. Email has just about killed the personal letter – the only thing keeping the postal services alive these days are mass marketers with their junk mail, Ebay and Amazon with package deliveries. Not everything in the series is vanishing in a literal sense like pay phones, but some of them do vanish from our perception like the fire hydrant, the lamp post, and the traffic cone. We know they’re there because we don’t trip over them when walking on the streets, but they exist at the periphery. They each have their own beauty and form, however, and within their function there are a remarkable variety of forms – the hydrant in Chalon-sur-Saone, while as recognizable as a fire hydrant as the hydrant from Washington DC, has a very different form, as does the Siamese spigot.

Payphones
Payphones
Everyday Objects - Payphone
Everyday Objects – Payphone
Lamppost, Riggs Bank, 14th Street
Lamppost, Riggs Bank, 14th Street
Yellow Postbox, Paris
Yellow Postbox, Paris
Mailbox
Mailbox
Hydrant, Chalon
Hydrant, Chalon
Mueller Hydrant, K Street, DC
Mueller Hydrant, K Street, DC
Siamese Spigot
Siamese Spigot
Traffic Cone
Traffic Cone

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