There’s a reason the 46-year-old Somerville resident risks his life to share on Instagram and Twitter pictures of rusted sewer covers and drains — an act called “drainspotting.” The manmade objects are often rich with local history, dating back centuries, and, seen from the right angle, are aesthetically mesmerizing.

“He’s worried that I’m going to get hit by a car,” said Fireside, who captures the images and posts them to social media. “I try to tell him that, you know, an artist’s work only goes up in value when the artist perishes.”

Daniel Fireside’s 12-year-old son thinks that his father’s latest hobby of standing in the street, taking photos of manhole covers and storm drain grates, is bound to earn him a Darwin Award, the sarcastic prize for those who die for lack of common sense.


“It’s one of these things where you don’t notice the stuff that’s all around you,” said Fireside, who has become accustomed to craning his neck toward the ground.

“And you wouldn’t notice all the variety — the visual variety, and craft variety — that goes into these unless you’re taking photos of them,” he said.

Fireside, who has a full-time job working for a fair-trade coffee company, has taken more than 1,000 images of unique manhole covers and storm drains throughout Greater Boston. Because of the striking details in the pictures, and, surprisingly, an existing fan base for pictures of old manhole covers worldwide, Fireside has quickly amassed an online following.

On Instagram and Twitter combined, he boasts more than 1,500 fans — a decent head count for someone who just started the project.

Fireside said his interest in the covers and their often intricate or mysterious designs began in May, while out for a walk in Somerville with his dog, Elvis, and 3-year-old son, Ulises.


He said his son started curiously pointing out different drain, manhole, and water meter covers as they strolled through the streets.

As they stopped to inspect each one, Fireside noticed details on the covers he had always overlooked: They had numbers, dates, and symbols, or two-letter initials imprinted on them. Others had checkered designs, hexagons, squares, or collections of holes poked through the metal in varying patterns.

“Within a mile of my house there is an incredible variety of something you don’t give any thought to,” he said. “You would think you need to cover the holes in the streets, so why not just mass-produce them, like you do with everything else in the world? But when you stop to take a look at them, you realize there is an element of craft involved.”

Steve Shea, director of engineering for Boston’s Water and Sewer Commission, said a collection of cast iron covers around the city — if you can spot them — have been in the ground for more than a century.

“You see them going back 120 to 130 years,” he said. “But they don’t look that old. They were built to last.”

Shea said it’s hard to identify them, because they aren’t marked by a date like sewer or water covers in other municipalities.

But “the ones that just say ‘Sewer,’ and have all the holes in them, are very, very old,” he said.

Fireside’s hobby has quickly turned into something of an obsession. He finds himself setting out to certain communities specifically in search of different variations, or themes. He looks for names or dates that can help him place when and where the covers were made. And because Fireside travels for his job, his reach has expanded to places like New York, Maryland, and Florida.


“It’s become this, kind of, totally oddball obsession, where I’m going to a new city, and I have a whole new set of streets to examine,” he said. “I’m always on the lookout for ones I haven’t seen before.”

“It’s a free hobby, and it gets me out walking and to explore new neighborhoods,” he added.

Fireside has posted around 500 pictures of covers and drains — many corroded, or worn from years of cars running over them — on Instagram alone. As his following builds, people from around the world have sent in their own images.

He said he’s encouraging a movement that others have already joined: Looking down at the ground. He uses the hashtag #Lookdown in his online posts.

“You start noticing the beauty and variation of the world around you. ... And, apparently, it has connected with different people,” he said.

His neck, he added, is just fine.

Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.