Just Add Water

Once you notice cigarette butts, it's hard to stop - they're everywhere!  It makes sense, really.  There are over four million smokers in Canada alone, a place where cigarettes are taxed sky-high due to health concerns.  In Calgary, smokers aren't even allowed to smoke on outside decks or patios, yet cigarette butts litter every sidewalk and street corner.

I couldn't stop thinking about these cigarette butts for a couple of days, so I figured I'd start collecting them.  This is something I wouldn't recommend doing - they stunk up our apartment, even through a sealed plastic bag and container.  But they were fun to mess around with.  First, I stuck some in an apple, which got my mind going, but didn't give me the results I was really going for.

Then I decided to put all of the butts into a glass and fill it with water.  I don't really remember why I decided to do this, but I'm glad I did.  It gave me a whole day of entertainment watching the used cigarettes turn the water from clear to a deep, murky brown.  

And it allowed me to take some photos of the butts piled on top of each other in a freeform sort of way. The water also saturated the sticks, giving me a new type of butt to work with.  

This experiment taught me the importance of taking simple objects and doing unexpected things with them.  I didn't know what to expect in the beginning of my first wandering thoughts about all the smokers in Calgary, but I allowed my mind and hands to work together without holding back.  I had a lot of fun doing it, and am happy with a step forward in my photography.