Shopping carts,2. img453, with story

Before I was successful on dA, I posted many early images, not particularly noticed.

One such was a documentary picture of collecting shopping carts.  For decades, I had been chasing this image of a young employee toiling at the task of rounding these up. The longer the line, the better to express the process. These carts would be used by the store's customers, then abandoned near their cars, being too much trouble for most to corral in the spots designated for them in the parking lots.

At periodic times of the day, often near closing or when the in store supply became low, the newest hires were sent out to rustle them back inside.  Not only is this a heavy, tiresome job, but the ability to steer is an art in itself.  Imagine an ocean tanker changing course to avoid an obstacle.  It takes a long time and distance to alter their direction.  On top of this he had to be careful not to run anyone over.

I was reminded of this image today after noticing a shopping cart photo on dA, and went back to redo this image.  My photoshop skills have improved and this version is much closer to what I had always wanted.  I had a chance to remove the distraction on the left side, which kept drawing my gaze from his task.

Taken with my Hasselblad 500C with a Zeiss 80mm F2.8 Planar, on Kodak Tri-X 120 panchromatic black and white film in the early 1970s. 

eugene spiegel

 Earlier version posted 2014.

Today most stores have a motorized pusher taking most of the labor out of the task, but you still have to steer them back to the storage region.