Four German sanitation workers and one photographer put their skills together for an unconventional art endeavor called the Trashcam Project, turning 1,000 liter dumpsters into giant, makeshift cameras. Fitting the bins with with pinhole cameras, the group toured their favorite spots in Hamburg, capturing stunning black-and-white photographs of the city.
The workers Christoph Blaschke, Mirko Derpmann, Hans-Peter Strahl, Roland Wilhelm, Max Soller, Michael Pfohlmann and Werner Bunning worked with photographer Matthias Hewing to bring their idea to fruition. According to their Flickr page, Hewing helped with professional advice and printing, but left the artistic vision up to the binmen.
Pinhole cameras are relatively crude in the world of photography, but take an astute understanding of light and focus to be successful. Their construction is simple; a single small aperture camera without a lens that captures images via light streaming through a tiny hole in an otherwise light-proof box. The surrounding scene is projected upside down into the box onto light sensitive paper that takes anywhere from, six minutes to an hour to imprint depending on the lighting.
The Trashcam Project is a beautiful portrayal of Hamburg and an interesting artistic perspective from a group of sanitation workers. Go to their Flickr page for more of their photography and for photos of the artists themselves. Click through below for pictures from the Trashcam Project:
CORRECTION: Due to a translation issue, a previous version of this post misstated the size of the dumpsters. This updated version also clarifies that the dumpsters were not just installed with pinhole cameras, but turned into cameras themselves.