This pho­to is (prob­a­bly) my favorite from my Rot­ten series.

In this series I pho­tographed food that would oth­er­wise have been dis­card­ed. I pro­duced this work as a play on the tra­di­tion­al still life and a reflec­tion of my own habits.
I became frus­trat­ed with the amount of waste leav­ing my own home. At the same time I was enam­ored with col­ors and tex­tures that appeared when food, espe­cial­ly fruit, was left to rot. 

By tak­ing light­ing cues from the Old Mas­ters and uti­liz­ing bro­ken, dried, mold­ed or oth­er­wise unap­pe­tiz­ing pro­vi­sions as sub­ject mat­ter, I jux­ta­posed some of our tra­di­tion­al pre­sen­ta­tions of edi­ble beau­ty with our waste. 

This work also speaks to the lux­u­ry of my abil­i­ty to con­sid­er the scrap­ping of food when a great many com­mu­ni­ties can­not. Our con­tin­ued refine­ment of food pro­duc­tion enables us to have greater con­trol over appear­ances until it reach­es our home, but after­wards we eas­i­ly dis­card that which devel­ops an unpleas­ant appear­ance. Even if the food main­tains qual­i­ty, we will quick­ly dis­pose of that which looks unap­peal­ing. Grant­ed, some of the ele­ments used in this work were lit­er­al­ly dis­gust­ing, but much of the mate­r­i­al could have been eat­en or oth­er­wise reused with­out ill effect.

With this work I explore con­cepts of what is appeal­ing, suc­cu­lent and edi­ble while explor­ing my own stan­dards of that which sus­tains. This work ven­tures to bring the focus back to ordi­nary decay and nat­ur­al cycles. With the desire for clean­er, new­er, brighter, shinier or clear­er sub­stance we read­i­ly dis­card that which is still — or even more — beau­ti­ful once left to nature’s own processes