Irving Penn Remembered: 1917-2009

With this “Street Material” series.
Later in his career, Penn turned his gaze downward, literally focusing his camera on the detritus that he found on city streets. In his hands, a wad of gum became an object of beauty, a discarded cigarette butt an icon. He also photographed flattened paper cups, deli containers and rags in extreme close-up, a collection that was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1977 in a show called “Street Material.”
– Having almost become detritus myself in the past year, I was collecting similar “insignificant material” this past summer –