I woke up this morning and my weekend photography project had disappeared – loaded onto the back of a truck and taken to be recycled, dumped, buried, discarded.  Little parts of people’s lives forming one large pile of rubble.    

It had been council curbside collection week in our local area and as I carted our junk onto the footpath I couldn’t help but notice the buzz all this “junk” had created.   People coming from everywhere to rummage through other people’s trash, marvelling at the treasures they discovered and carted away to serve a new life in someone else’s home.  Amongst all this happening there was an underlying dimension that speaks volumes about people – it says much about who you are, who your neigbours are.   What does what we throw away say about us?   Couldn’t help myself, grabbed my camera & asked the questions.

Here are a few of the images, each one with a story to tell.   You’ll find an old couch – how many stories would those chairs tell?   What life did they bring to that family?  The entire furnishings of a baby’s room – a new phase in the life of this family perhaps?  A lone vacuum cleaner hose – what happened to the vaccuum that it belongs to?  What of the image you will see of the disgarded beer and golfballs?  The stories that could tell.    Or maybe there is no story here.  Just random pieces of various lives thrown on the sidewalk – a sad indictment to our disposable society.   

For me curbside collection is like a cleanse – a fresh start, a change.  So when I took these images I could not help but feel a sense of renewal in my neighboured, reinforced as I watched people load their new found treasures into the back of their car.  Everything old is new again.

To view the complete gallery of “Found Treasure” click on the image.