Tag Archives: Fire Hydrants

Mailboxes, and other Ordinary Objects Around the World

I’ve been photographing what I call “ordinary objects” for a couple years now, featuring things like mailboxes, payphones, water fountains, trash bins and the like. I just added a Mexican mailbox to my collection over the Veterans’ Day holiday. I have objects from France, Italy, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico now.

Fire Hose Connector – Ordinary Object Portrait

Another in my series of portraits of ordinary objects. Most of my ordinary objects portraits depict well-used, sort of unloved objects, but this is a brand-new (or at least nearly new) fire hose connector inside the Fortezza Basso complex in Florence.

Fire Hose Connector
Fire Hose Connector

Ordinary Objects series – Toronto

I know I’m repeating hydrants in the same post, but they’re substantially different takes on the same subject.

Hydrant, Graffiti
Hydrant, Graffiti

I also find it interesting that we have Mueller hydrants in Washington DC but they look very different.

Mueller Hydrant, Toronto
Mueller Hydrant, Toronto
Mueller Hydrant, K Street, DC
Mueller Hydrant, K Street, DC

Another pay phone shot, showing the much-abused state of the poor neglected utility. I see a lot more pay phones around Toronto, but still not many people using them.

Bell Pay Phone
Bell Pay Phone

Portraits of Ordinary Objects

I was out doing some more street shooting in my neighborhood and found a couple more “ordinary objects” that cried out for portraits. I’ve included some of my past ones here to provide some context for the project idea.

Triple Meter, 14th Street
Triple Meter, 14th Street
Electrical Box, 13th & U Streets
Electrical Box, 13th & U Streets
Mailbox
Mailbox
Yellow Postbox, Paris
Yellow Postbox, Paris
Hydrant, Chalon
Hydrant, Chalon
Everyday Objects - Payphone
Everyday Objects – Payphone
Siamese Spigot
Siamese Spigot
Traffic Cone
Traffic Cone
Twin Parking Meters
Twin Parking Meters
Mueller Hydrant, K Street, DC
Mueller Hydrant, K Street, DC

These were shot on a mix of films – the black and white are either Kodak Tri-X or Ilford FP4+, and the color shots were taken with Kodak Ektar 100, all using my Rolleiflex 2.8E.

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