Steve Geer
In Chicago, behind the shops and restaurants, there are service alleys. These city canyons are lined with dumpsters. Sometimes there is too much trash and discarded things spill into the alley. There are plastic knives and forks and cups and cigarette lighters. There are disposable gloves in vast quantities, and packaging of all types.
There are flowers and vegetables that are past their best, and crumpled newspapers and fliers. In 2017 I began photographing this spillage, placing the discarded items in reflecting puddles to provide an informative backdrop, and sometimes arranging them into still-life groupings inspired by their usage.
I live in the city. I buy things in shops and eat in restaurants. I see my own day-to-day activities in many of the still-life vignettes in the series. They are self-portraits in which I’m absent.
