I was watching for a certain location as I rode the bus south down Mass Ave. earlier this week. I had seen a bizarre
thing on the ride up to the mechanic and I was willing to hop off a few stops early and take some photos if it was still there.
Me being me and having a spare ten minutes or so, I decided to take the opportunity at hand to really work the scene
a bit. The last time I ran into a cellophane-wrapped car I wasn't able to take pictures, so I was itching for another chance.
OK, I totally made that last part up. The point is, it's not the sort of thing that either:
- happens near me
- happens at all
Although I did google 'cellophane wrapped car' just to be sure. The only relevant hit on the first page of results was
MIT. It was the first listing. It was the top hit because, of course, they have actually wrapped a car in cellophane. Those guys think of everything!
And I wouldn't want to stage this because it ruins the effect. You have to happen upon this sort of thing and go for
it. Much the same could be said for the act of wrapping a car in cellophane, as is evident here.
One of the things I get excited about when stumbling across this kind of thing is the chance to compose photos that lose
context or become abstract or whatnot. Case in point. It doesn't take too much to figure out what this is, but I bet you've
never seen one arranged in quite this way before.
I decided to nickname the wrapper-of-cars The Cellophane Bandit (TCB). There's a whole backstory
there, but I don't have time to make it up right now. It would be a whole lot easier if the real TCB would just send me feedback.
Then I could do a double-secret hidden interview type thing. That would be cool. But it probably won't happen, so let me now
finally reveal the mark of the bandit:
Before we get to the end of the story, I would be remiss if I didn't show you the whole scene so you can drink in the
beauty of a cellophane-tree-branch-twine-paper-tube-wrapped car. But I scrambled the plate number for privacy
reasons.
And where would such an event take place? Well, turn around and see:
(the end)
