Taking a Leak by CoreyBlack
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Description
You find the strangest things in alleys in Chicago: velvet paintings of Al Pacino as Scarface, bathroom fixtures ( including fiberglass shower enclosures, bathtubs, toilets ETC), used up computers, televisions and stereos, nasty looking mattresses ,and an awful lot of furniture. In pre-gentrified Chicago, it wasn't unusual to find the occasional dead body in a Dumpster. Most of those now end up in car trunks in vacant lots on the West Side.
The coolest thing I ever found in an alley was a bright red vinyl high back bucket seat from an early 70s Ford Mustang back in 1992. I lugged the amazingly heavy thing up three flights of stairs to my Roger's Park apartment and used it as a chair. All my friends loved to sit in it and pretend they were driving a car.
So it wasn't unusual when I came across this mirror in the alley behind my apartment one day last winter. What WAS unusual was that it wasn't broken. A short time after I made this picture (we're talking about 15 minutes at the local grocery), it was gone. Most likely into the back of one of the many scavenger trucks that patrol Chicago's alleys blasting Salsa music like battered rolling jukeboxes, their ramshackle cargo piled high and roped into place.
What really grabbed me about this scene was how the reflection in the mirror makes it look like it's beckoning you into another dimension. Kurt Vonnegut's character Kilgore Trout liked to jokingly refer to mirrors as "leaks" into an alternate reality. That's what this picture reminds me of.
Photographed in the Albany Park area of Chicago on February 24, 2011.
Comments (11)
kgb224
Wonderful find and capture Corey. God Bless.
Chipka
This has an oddly Stanly Kubrick quality to it and I expect to hear some piece of abstract music playing in the background: Lux Aeterna, maybe, or something by Krysztof Penderecki...you know, cool, brooding Polish Avant Garde or Euro-Abstract dissonant stuff with perfect tonal harmonics; the stuff that makes the china cabinet resonate two rooms away...THAT is what I sense when I see this image. It's so deliciously incongruous: I love the tree-limb triptych, rather like three views of the same reality from slightly different dimensional planes. Very nice. I like this immensely. It's so deliciously abstract, despite its solidity. I love the relationships in this: it's stuff you don't normally associate: sky and mirrors, trees and mirrors...an alley and mirrors, and yeah, it's as much of a treasure as an Al Pachino velvet painting on felt! Gorgeous!
photogmark
very cool
auntietk
LOVE the reflections! You've got me thinking it would be cool to actually PAINT something like this on the surface of a mirror and hang it on the wall. Hang it someplace where it does reflect a tree outside the house, and watch people try to figure it out. My twisty brain part just kicked in. :P
whaleman
That would have been an excellent grab! An uncle of mine once worked as a garbage collector and he always said you would not believe what people threw out, especially at Christmas time. Many unopened presents were discarded unwrapped — the boys took turns on who would get whatever was in a particular alley.
durleybeachbum
Brilliant pic of an excellent find...I would certainly have taken it home if I'd had the car with me.
morningglory
Cool shot and very nice mirror. Awesome find for sure.
flavia49
fantastic image!! A mirror or a portal to other galaxies?
billcody
Great find! It looks cool and beautiful and the focus of the reflexion is wonderful! 5+++++++
beachzz
i knew someone who made his living by finding things like these on the street. he'd then take them to the flea market and sell them. not a bad gig!! i love finds like these; it's a far bigger treasure than if you found it in some antique store.
danapommet
This is so sharp and wonderful clarity. Love the split reflections.