Those Gray Circles in the Street
A panoply of manhole covers
This article is in response to the monthly writing challenge at Globetrotters:
The only time the lowly manhole cover gets any attention is when it is missing, when water or gas pressure from the sewer system below pops it up into the air, or when the denizens of a post-apocalyptic city lift one to see if the aliens are still hunting them.
I didn’t think anything of them either. Then, I randomly chose them as a photographic series project while traveling in 2022–23. Admittedly, I saw many that were so boring I couldn’t bring myself to stop and aim my phone at them. But every once in a while, there was a gem. Even if I weren’t paying enough attention, my wife or daughter would grab my arm, nails digging deeply into my soft skin, shouting, “Look over there! Get a picture of that one!”
So, if the museum was closed, it rained all day, or lunch sucked, at least I could get a photo for my series.
Theft of manhole covers was a problem last year in Skopje, as the metal can be salvaged for some nominal price.
My one criterion in this photographic project was that the manhole had to contain at least some indication of the city or country where I found it.
Most of the photos don’t change a great deal when rendered in black and white.
One interesting factoid about manhole covers is that they are usually circular so that they cannot be rotated or flipped in such a way as to fall into the shaft below, unlike squares or rectangles. Square ones, like that shown above from Surabaya, have a hinge on one side to eliminate this danger.
The above manhole cover is one of my favorites. It includes both the most famous tower in the country (The Taipei 101) and renditions of cable cars and other tourist attractions. On top of that, it has a colorized background.
The manhole cover in Belgrade, commemorating a centennial, has an insert cast in brass and shows, among other things, a rendition of the Pobednik Monument.
The parade of sewer art above is a fraction of what I have stored on my phone. This may not impress many people. My surprisingly rich photo series of ‘My Daughter Banging on Temple Gongs in Thailand’ might have been more appealing, but manhole covers do a better job of being gray, hence more fitting for the monthly challenge.
Adrienne Beaumont presents a gray visit to Budapest:
Many great and gray stony places are shown in the entry by Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages:
A visit to departed souls by Rhonda Carrier in Penang:
And a somber reflection by Scott-Ryan Abt in a city that is hard to imagine in black and white:
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