Dustbin Day

Dustbin Day1

A photograph, as Victor Burgin once remarked, is an offer that cannot be refused.In this statement Burgin alludes to the power invested within images and recalls on the old adage of an image being worth a thousand words. The power of a photograph, or any image, lies within its storytelling abilities. The questions and answers it raises within the viewer and the emotional responses evoked, because on first sight, before stringent analysis, an image is more likely to provoke an emotional response than in intellectual one. And once an image is ‘seen’ the apprehension of it cannot be taken away. 2

Keeping the storytelling value of a photograph in mind and taking into account Marxist theories of social practice, and our needs for stories, we are lead to questioning why it is that we are drawn to stories and how a photograph can have such a powerful impact on a viewer to the point at which an image can break or perpetuate social ideas and myths.3

I am a photographer and this is my story about dusbin day:4

The sun has barely lit the world and already the streets are being canvassed by people who are setting out to work, by this I do not only mean the people in the comfort of their cars on their way to offices, or even people in busses or taxi’s on their way to their jobs. By this I also mean the people who are quite literally canvassing the streets, by foot and in some instances, by trolley. Earning themselves the name of “Street People”. 5

For my first photograph I had encountered a solitary trolley standing on the left side of seemingly quiet road, in the same way, as a car normally would be parked outside of a house. Taking on the role of the vehicle the trolley seems to have been parked outside of the house and is loaded with possessions ready to be transported.  Much like the traditional and probably intended use of the trolley, it is filled of items. 6

From a distance the trolley does not look incredibly unlike those seen being pushed around shop isles, the obvious difference being that this trolley is in a street and not a shop. And the items inside of this trolley have been taken out of dustbins rather than off of supermarket shelves. The trolley is filled with packets, flattened boxes, paper and a large blue bin. 7

A few meters away from the trolley, in the same street, walks a man carrying a bundle of newspapers he recently had rummaged in a dustbin for. In the photograph of him holding his newspapers the same house appears in the background as in the first photograph, and this person in the picture also happens to be the owner of the trolley and its contents. He is dressed in baggy, paint-splattered pants, a grey-and-yellow top and a white peak-cap. As he walks across to the trolley with a sense of achievement he stops to pose with his newspapers for a photograph before adding them to the top of his trolley, which to an ‘ignorant’ eye, appears to be full of trash.  But to the owner of the trolley is full of worthy possessions. 8

Around the corner and a few houses down, I see a bright red hat bobbing up and down over a large black municipal dustbin. Walking closer I see the man under the hat wearing a holey blue jacket and dark pants. He stops his amorous searching in the dustbin to greet me and I ask him if he would mind me taking a picture of him, he retorted with “Gaan jy my betaal?” (trans. “Are you going to pay me?”). I agree to. He returns to rummaging in the bin and rather candidly poses for the photograph to be taken of him demonstrating his daily plight of searching through black municipal rubbish bins to find anything worthwhile and of use to him. 9

Stretching his hand into the dustbin, his hand re-emerges in the next shot holding onto a packet presumably thrown out by the household behind the white wall in the background of the picture. Looking very satisfied with his discovery he rests the packet on the edge of the dustbin and turns back to the camera for a second shot before leaning back into the dustbin to see what else he could find. 10

A few streets away from this red-hatted character was the first and only lady I managed to take a photograph of. Standing at a dustbin surrounded by four large garbage bags, dressed neatly with a white material head covering and bright pink socks which showed between her navy shoes and black pants, she turned to greet me with an incredibly radiant face and friendly smile. And although she happily agreed for her photograph to be taken the moment I raised the camera, she smiled shyly and turned her head away and continued looking through the contents of the dustbin.11

In the very next street I met a man who had stopped on the corner of the street with his trolley. The trolley was filled with scrap paper, newspaper and packets filled with paper that he had collected from other peoples discarded rubbish. He went onto explain about all the paper he walks the streets to collect, so he can earn a little bit of money. Forty-five cents a kilogram, from a paper recycling plant. On one end of his trolley hangs a regular in which he keeps all of his own belongings- all except for what he was wearing. Which happened to be two pairs of pants, a pair of worn down black shoes, a jacket, a hat, a jersey and a bright blue tee shirt.12

The next day, garbage collection had moved onto a new area, which happened to be a few streets down from where I had been meeting the above street people the day before. One of the first people I met was Raymond. 13

Walking down a street I saw a man dressed in a grubby looking green tracksuit top who had stopped next to an overflowing dustbin with his very empty looking trolley. 14

Swung over the side of his trolley were an old tie and a red jacket he had recently found. In the trolley, a half-full black rubbish bag and in his hand, he too had a sports-duffel bag filled with little treasures he had put together. In the first photograph I took of him, his trolley strongly contrasts with the gate in front of the red car parked behind it. 15

The high white wall and gate seemed to emulate that urban fear of wanting to keep something out, but on the outside of the wall stood this very households rubbish in a dustbin freely accessible to many- including Raymond, who stood out from the other people I had met the day before. 16

While he stood with his trolley and red jacket on one side of the wall that contrasted sharply with the red car and gate behind him, Raymond stood absolutely upright and spoke with a tone of reverence in his voice and a sparkle in his eye. Before he surprised me with a question he hesitated with but was clearly eager to ask. He asked if I would mind taking a second picture so that he could have a photograph of himself too. I had started to explain to him that I wouldn’t need to take another picture, I could just develop two when a look of disappointment, a common human emotion I could identify with, came over him.  So I agreed and took a second picture. 17

The second picture however gave a very interesting contrast to the first. The first picture of Raymond shows him standing in light with a clear and lit face, so the photographic representation shows him to be more of a trustable character whereas the second photograph depicts him in the shadows creating a far more dubious character than the first photograph does. The angle of the second picture also changes the impression of him through the camera angle and composition. The first photograph is at more of an eye-level with Raymond; the second is from a slightly higher angle creating an impression of looking down on him. The first photograph also gives a sense of light and space around him, whereas the second surrounds him in darkness giving him a direct opposition to the wall and the black bin next to him rather than behind him. 18

The next four photographs although not directly connected to what I have dubbed as ‘Dustbin Day’ shows the longer effects and impacts that these collection days have on the collectors as they store and use what we so easily throw out. The first photograph in this set shows two people sitting in a doorway with packets around them. One implication of this photograph is that they are not likely to be the homeowners of the home they are sitting in front of, but are merely sitting in front of the house with their gathered possessions. 19

The next person I encounter is a man sitting on a full black rubbish bag in an inlet on the pavement. Just next to him, parked on the street behind a car is what we presume to be his trolley, piled with bags and flattened cardboard boxes. He is seated in the sun, wearing black shoes, dark blue pants, a light blue tee shirt and a yellow cap almost secluded from society while still being in the centre of it by being in a public space on the pavement, next to a mural painted wall in the right of the picture.20

With a very similar subject to the former photograph, the next is very different in its composition and portrayal. Here we see three people seated in an inlet of pavement, one sitting on his own in dark clothing and clearly visible, the other two seated in the shade against the far right wall where one is barely visible behind a heavily laden trolley. Instead of murals, there is graffiti on the walls and the figures themselves appear to be more isolated and pushed back from society.21

The last photograph is of a single man seated on a cement bench. He is dressed in sandals, grey pants, a green jersey, a light green tee shirt and has a hat on his head. He also has a ring on his right ring finger and is holding a newspaper, which, it seems, he also happens to be reading. This photograph could easily dispel the myth of all street people being uneducated, illiterate and complete social outcasts. In reading the newspaper he is in tuned with and probably concerned with newsworthy events in the world. 22

This leads to the questioning of social agendas and the assumptions made as to class distinctions and social myths. And begs the question of just how social identities are created and perpetuated and by whom. As Greame Turner suggests:23

…myths, contradictions and inequities which could not be resolved 24

in the real world were resolved symbolically. The function of myth 25

was to place those contradictions…as a part of natural existence. 26

Myths negotiated a peace between men and women and their natural 27

environment so that they could live in it without agonising over its28

frustrations and cruelties.  29