The Blizzard of 2009 pretty much shut things down around here and we were basically house-bound for four days. The good side is that I made an incredible amount of progress on my image files – a DVD full of Mexico sent off to one stock agency, almost 900 shots of Egypt uploaded to Alamy (that alone took most of three days) and another 650 or so images of China prepped for submission.

While processing the China shots, I ran across this one that I’ve intended to blog about for awhile now. It’s a basket of trash that had just been swept up at the Master of Nets Garden in Suzhou. What strikes me about this is that I was compelled to photograph someone’s trash. Had I shot this in the US, you’d most likely be looking at a bulging plastic bag sitting on some cracked concrete. But there’s something beautiful about this trash. Sure, it’s just leaves and not discarded paper and junk, but it’s also being kept in an honest basket with a useful but colorful handle. The pavement is rough and stained but it’s real materials and carefully laid. I don’t know. It just says something to me. Makes me wish for less plastic and paper in the world and that all of our trash could be this beautiful.