The Can Collector
David Gilbert photo art

Discombobulate is apparently a joke word built from more mannerly roots such as discomfit or discompose; but there is nothing funny about feeling discombobulated. I find this picture to be discombobulating. Compositional rules have been broken. It unsettles me to meet the gaze from a face, edge of frame, which rests on a seemingly severed torso. His shadow seems too sharp. It is oddly disconcerting to see the wheels from the cart and the bicycle somehow jumbled together. The geometric edges of black shapes contrast with the deflated white bag of cans; it slumps like a sagging heart. Yet it makes sense to break rules right now. It can be good to be discombobulated.

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