Babcock writes, “Why low-tech? We are bombarded by relentless advertisements praising the performance of the latest machine or high-tech gadget. The old gets cast aside as passé. A low-tech artist rejects advanced technology and chooses instead a more direct process. I assemble photographic instruments from old parts, pinholes and discarded containers and think of it as my personal commentary on consumer culture.”

In these photographs, it’s as if Babcock’s common containers can view their surroundings. Take the picture of a painter on a scaffold made with the “Mr. Painter” paint-can camera: the photograph proves that the camera actually works, but the image is no mere demonstration. Its optical distortions and drastic falloff of focus, defects wrought by a cheap lens and the can’s cylindrical interior, remove it from the thought that it might be a realistic representation of human vision. This is what a paint can would see on a job site—a paint can’s view of the world—its world.

The pairing up of Babcock’s cameras and the pictures he makes with them suggest the idea that we could become an object through an active suspension of disbelief. We might become an index card tray, relegated to the dim basement of the library next to a mountain of likewise forsaken books. We see how the Band Aid box understands its patient, how cheap suitcases regard roadside motels and bus stations, how laundry soap might face off with a coin-operated washing machine. Babcock’s gasoline can looks up at the Texaco pumps from precisely the ankle-high view it would have when set down on the filling station breezeway. It's as if, with a little imagination, we could be the mailbox, the picnic basket or the five-pound can of MSG about to be delivered to the Chinese restaurant.