Abandoned things and their stories...

We've all seen the all to common sight of abandoned or lost clothes scattered across town and road, victims of passion, possibly... or lack of cash at the weekends who knows?. I did hear an urban myth about taxi drivers taking peoples jeans if they could not pay...

I myself take pictures of these unfortunate items. I started this after my long and still ongoing project of taking pictures of abandoned shopping trollies which evolved and before anyone ones says "thats been done before", well I had the first idea to do it 11 years ago now, whilst existing in the twilight.

Where I used to work in Sale, was a trolley mecca. My office block stood in an area littered with Tesco's finest, Mark and Spencer's best, Sainsbury's try something new wire metaled constructs, along with many more, all casually abandoned after ferrying their own weight in eggs and bread, milk and stockings.. (plus I also used to have crushes on some of the check out girls, who I'd had given names, I was too nervous to actually find out their names. These where the only other people I interacted with on a regular basis, working nights at my previous job, was a killer of friendships and souls).

So armed with my trusty film camera which I still prefer (I'd only purchase my first digital 2 years later whilst drunk and getting fat in Tenerife, with a massive 2 mega pixels). I'd go out after work or dinner, sometimes as late as 2am and wander around snapping up the local abandoned trollies, we'd also used to get large gathering on our carpark, hiding from the collectors or left by kids, looking more like animals than inanimates.

A lot were left as if causally waiting for a friend or punting for extra business as if it was something illicit, some as if they had run away themselves, others huddled together for warmth like pack animals and many cast upon their sides - the dead or murdered, but the most unfortunate would be in rivers or canals.

I still take pictures of them, but after a while this evolved into collecting shopping lists, left within these trollies. Yes I'm strange for the most part and I did get quite feverish at collecting them, sometimes going out of my way to get these scraps of screwed up paper. But I often wondered why lists are so readily thrown away....

If you think about a list, most people will spend a lot of time and effort to scribe down their wants, needs, treats and then simply screw it up and leave it... this list, that may have taken time to produce and probably the most thought out thing in that persons day or week.

But also interestingly the scraps of paper or what ever comes to hand used for lists is vast and the previous information or added information can just be as interesting, mobile phone numbers, letters from schools... wanting to see the parents of so and so... and some of the items listed are hilarious... Some badly spelt, but all in a different cursive. Some surprisingly long, whilst other suspiciously short and vague, did they know what the wanted or just thought "hell with it.. what ever takes my fancy shall be cast into my basket or trolley... I don't need it but I don't care...."

Again I still collect the odd ones, I did have a project to collect 101 randomly found lists, my eventual idea was to make a big list from all the scraps... which is still in the making...

Well as all things do, the evolution continued and I moved onto taking pictures of abandoned clothes. It's surprising how many loose articles are scattered around and when you mention it to people they too have come across a fair amount of this detritus.... My mum and dad once saw a bra hanging from a tree or on top of a bush in a very public area.

I myself have seen shoes (mostly babies), a pair of jeans, a couple of jumpers and many hat, but by far the most lost piece of clothing must be the humble glove. A sad lonely thing on it own, always craving for it's opposite equal. This is where my final part of the abandonment has come to rest, finding that single glove in the gutter or run over in the road, all wet and dirty.

If these glove weren't an inanimate object and had feelings what would they be?, a constant feeling of loneliness? or loss?, a want of rescue to meet lefty or righty again and be happy ever after?... that desperate plea to meet a one handed person....

No Doubt this will continue on until the point we evolve something better than hands, either a bluetooth dongle or a USB finger tip