A Double Good Morning...

There's no doubt that the subject/object matter of the 'roadkill' aluminium cans found directly upon or in the very near vicinity of the local 'double black lines' road markings, & photographically, pictorially framed thus, has become the dominant theme of the year so far, particularly of late, with a flurry of encounters to consider & record.
Today proved to be no exception, once out the world after the luxury of an hour's drawing in decent daylight prior to the morning's later start to the day job, with the added bonus of some especially interesting points to note.

In the first of two objects to be found adjacent to each other (but not quite feasibly enough to be included, composed, within the same picture frame: thus, see further below), one might note that the integrity of the flat, monochrome picture plane, modulated by subtle tonal transitions from tarmac to painted lines, has been compromised significantly by what appears to be the evidence of seismic activity affecting the road surface, rupturing it in places & resulting in a network, a pattern, of cracks upon & within it, that could be regarded, however fancifully, as a form of line drawing additional &, with its vaguely circular form, complementary to that, ‘given’, of the straight lines horizontally traversing the scene as framed.
Obviously, more textural activity occurs across the surface also.


Another intriguing detail - & a narrative element - occurs with the reappearance of the ‘roadkill’ object itself, the still(ed) life element of the composition, as has featured thus previously, indeed here, some 16 days ago, now having travelled approximately 15 yards down the road(side), thus apparently at somewhat leisurely pace (odd, in fact, that it hasn’t been road-swept during this period, as such discarded objects, although ubiquitous, usually are, tending not to endure quite so long).
The keen-eyed viewer might notice how such time & distance has transformed, weathered, the appearance of the object, flatter yet now than originally found & its surface considerably more distressed, dustied, a layer of grime ('glazed' translucently, in a painterly analogy, even if seeming somewhat contadictory) over the design of its branded identity, even punctured by a hole at one point: this process helps it become even more integrated into the picture, to echo more closely still the colours & tones of the road surface & the overpainted lines upon which it lies in low relief, which is all rather wonderful & more satisfyingly 'pictorial'.


Stepping slightly to the right allows the photographic framing, then, of a second instance of a 'roadkill' aluminium can upon the very same lines, with, again, a network of craquelure 'drawn' upon, & textural disturbance to, the surface & substance of tarmac road & 'double black lines', another pictorial composition of still life object (this one more crumpled-down than properly flattened) against a subtly-modulated grey monochrome ground that somewhat mirrors the previous example...



Given such a complementary pair of images, it seemed appropriate then to combine them into a panoramic composition more complex than the habitual single object format, establishing a dialogue between the two 'roadkill' objects & allowing full expression to what thus becomes the central circular-ish form of the surface cracking.