Feb 18, 2008

Laundry From Around The World

Why is something as mundane as hanging laundry so photogenic when traveling? At home it wouldn’t get a second glance let alone warrant a photograph. Perhaps the inspiration comes from the environment that frames it, like the narrow cobblestone alleys of Trastevere in Rome, Italy.


Or maybe it’s how these sheets have been artfully hung by the Dhobi Wallahs of Mumbai (Bombay) India.


The necessity of this scene caught my eye.


In an older neighborhood in Shanghai, China someone most likely living in a cramped apartment erected a clothes line across the sidewalk to dry their bed linens.

6 comments:

Prêt à Voyager said...

I love the mundaneness of laundry!

Anne

Wendy said...

Anne,
I'm with you on that. It's the only domestic chore I like.

Prêt à Voyager said...

I can't say the same for myself. I don't have laundry access where I live so every couple weeks I pack up my day pack and hike 3/4 mi to the laundr-o-mat. It's really not that bad and it makes me feel hard core. And it doesn't keep me from liking laundry in pictures ;) . . . Speaking of which, I was reading through one of my journals from Cuba and I had made a note that they aren't allowed to hang their laundry outside (I think it has something to do with image and the restorations).

Anne

Wendy said...

That is hard core. We don't have facilities in our building either so it gets carted down the block to a laundry place and dropped off, can't stand fighting for dryers :^) In a stint of living overseas I had a machine in my apartment. It was divine. That's interesting about Cuba. Something I wouldn't have expected.

Anonymous said...

Laundry hanging captures our American visitors to Europe as much as anything, because they are not used to seeing it at home. Drying costs so much here, that I have learned to love the whole process of hanging out clothes! I take pics of my own sometimes! lol.

Great blog!

Wendy said...

Hi Jeanne,
Thank you and happy travels.