sorry for that stupid title, it just fit so well.

technical details:

camera: canon ae-1p (using full manual mode, of course)
lens: 50 / f 1.4
film: fuji neopan 1600 iso, scan from negative
exposure: f 2.8, 1/60th second (i wanted as much dof as i could get while still being able to shoot handheld, which is 1/60th with that camera & lens)

the shot was made in september (just turned 16th, i think), around 1 am, so it was pretty dark. location is the cologne/bonn airport train station, germany.

we had some barbecue that night celebrating a friend's birthday, which is why i had my camera loaded with that pretty sensitive kind of film. afterwards, i went to the airport with another friend to fetch his girlfriend who was coming back from holiday that night. on our way back into town waiting for the train, i was taking some shots of the couple being happily reunited, then i saw that lonely guy sitting on the other side of the tracks. fortunately, i had one single frame left on that roll of film so i was able to capture that moment. seeing him sitting there made me remember how you can feel lost beeing on your own in the dark in a foreign country. i don't know if that guy really was a foreigner, but then we don't have that many people of african descent here in germany. only later when i was printing this frame in darkroom class i realized it is carrying another message. the german word "abfall" on the garbage can translates to english as trash, rubbish, garbage, drop-off and so on, it is not possible bring all of its meaning into english. thus the title. i was asking my classmates if they would consider that shot racist, but most of them said said it might be understood as social critique. i'm still not sure what it means to me, though. i'm looking forward to other interpretations, maybe i am just a little over-sensitve, the print was cropped and put the word and the guy more into the center of the image.