Usually, I try to bring out the best in a place and its people through my photography. I don’t want to show you how crappy a place is when I can show you how beautiful it is instead. But whereas in the West, we have the money, infrastructure, and know-how to hide our (much bigger) problem with waste disposal, the developing world is acutely lacking in all of those. Lack of tax income, corrupt officials, poor planning, and callous people, among many other factors, contribute to a country’s waste being displayed right out in the open, directly polluting its waterways, food systems, and inner cities. At the same time, however, these trash-scapes have their own elegance and beauty, as hopefully you’ll see below. This is what I have so far; I’ll try to update this when I can as a running catalogue of all the beautiful but ugly trash-scenes I encounter.
Above: These were all taken in Imphal, Manipur, in northeast India.
Above left: “Not all men clean their cities but real men do” – NOT, in Kohima, India. Middle: Rickshaw driver awaiting a fare, above a trash heap, Dimapur. Right: Free range chickens in Vietnam
Above: Trashy river bank in Vietnam
Above: High-altitude trash pile outside of Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, India. This was actually a trash burning site, which is what most of the developing world seems to do with its trash when dumping is inconvenient. They just pile it all up somewhere, and set it ablaze. I guess it’s better than just piling it up?
Trashy graves along the coast of Vietnam.
Trashy clouds on the way to Darjeeling, India.
Trash wilderness in the mountains of northern Vietnam.
