Fire hydrants

Fire hydrants! Yes fire hydrants. Fire hydrants are a perfect example of the many ubiquitous but invisible objects that mange to clutter up the landscape of our everyday world while remaining almost completely unnoticed. I have been taking pictures of fire hydrants since the 1970’s. Unfortunately I lost all of those pictures along with everything else in Hurricane Katrina. Somehow when you are running for your life with whatever you can cram into your trunk pictures of fire hydrants are not at the top of your priority list. That said, I have started my fire hydrant collection again and already have several nice ones. It is just in its infancy now but perhaps one day when it is a mature collection with artistic value I will share it.

Here's one of my favorites from New Orleans. It has a date, September 14, 1868, right on the top. I'm not sure exactly what that date represents but its got to be pretty old, even for a fire hydrant.