Roadside debris as art

On my drive in to work today, I had the idea that a good series of photos could be made of the myriad debris that is found along the road.

The object that served as the impetus for this idea was an exploded tape measure. I imagine that it fell out of the back of a contractor's pickup truck traveling at 70 miles per hour. As it hit the ground the cover shattered and blew open, allowing the spring-loaded tape, normally tightly wound inside to unravel. But, as it did so--in what I imagine to be quite an explosion of flipping, spinning activity--it somehow managed to retain it's spiralling shape. The end result was reminiscent of a multiple-layer, flared and bulging, yellow mobius strip mounted to the remains of a plastic tape measure case. It was awesome.

Sadly, I wasn't quick enough to recognize the photographic opportunity until it was too late to pull over (assuming I'd have had the guts to pull over, of course). But, as I thought about it, I had the idea that roadside debris could be art. So I started to pay attention to the random objects resting on the shoulders of the highway and was surprised by the stories that they could tell.

I'm certain that this idea has been done before, but not by me, so I'm going to be on the lookout for junk that might make good photos. We'll see if I can make art out of it--and I don't mean that pretentious 'the idea is art but the art is ugly' art; I mean art that finds and shows beauty in the form, color and lighting of the discarded bits--the remnants of our commute.