‘Pictures from a Rubbish Tip‘ is a series by Keith Arnatt during the late 1980s of five large colour photographs featuring close up shots of waste that had been dumped at the local tip. In each image, the lens focuses upon various items of food such as; bread, chicken bones and vegetables.
Arnatt did this over several trips. He did not use any artificial lighting when doing the shoot, he relied on the daylight alone and focusing the lens sharply on the closest part of the featured item. as well as using an extremely shallow depth of field.
Since the waste lies on pale plastic, it helps diffuse and reflect the daylight making the photographs appear to be brightly coloured.
Arnatt believed that taking the photos from that angle and with said lighting, puts the viewer in the position in which he was when he noticed and picked up the half-buried objects.
Personally, I think that series such as this one where the shoot is quite messy get the message across more. There are plenty of campaigns about pollution and littering, but they need to appeal to advertisement therefore needing to keep it somewhat ‘clean’ however, series like this get people truly thinking about the waste they produce – and the amount of waste.
I thought the same with Gregg Segal’s series ‘7 Days of Garbage’ where he had people he knew save waste – including recyclables, for a whole week and then photographed them lying within the trash. Once again, it sends a powerful message and successfully at that.
stevenson.snaps 