Spectacles of spilled and deserted food have always intrigued me. I always wonder what tragic turn of events enabled the ground to snatch some poor soul’s lunch from their grasp. There’s nothing worse than being forced to manage your anger and find a new source of nourishment after involuntarily forfeiting a cherished meal to the sullied streets of a city. However, in New York City, spilled food on the sidewalk and street is an unavoidable, everyday occurrence. It truly justifies the nickname “the concrete jungle” attributed to dense metropolises; startling animals and smells or unexpected footfalls present themselves to surprised pedestrians wherever there is abandoned food. Often times, such an event is neither interesting nor satisfactory because the scene is too mundane and familiar. But every once and a while, we get lucky and are blessed with a once in a lifetime sight! I’ve seen an army of ants, indifferent to the constant foot traffic, enjoy converging rivers of smoothies as they’re lost to the sewer, a large salad feeding a mischief of half a dozen rats, or pigeons feasting on a McDonald’s combo meal. The extravaganza of a frantic dog walker yanking the leash as the beast on the other end uncontrollably struggles to investigate some curious cuisine is an all too familiar sight to many. We can all relate to the unpleasant experience of being struck by (sometimes pleasant, but more often putrid) unfamiliar odors of sustenance that have a tendency to lurk around any given corner. When a stranger is the subject of these random ominous barrages, their reactions can be amusing, while it’s anything but when it happens to us.

 

In this series, I photograph the transpiring scene surrounding whatever food has been spilled and neglected. A scene’s irony or atypicality might draw me to it. The viral “Pizza Rat” from 2015 is an example of what I mean. Although rats carrying food is by no means a foreign concept, the fact that it was an entire slice of pizza amazed onlookers due to its incredulity. But furthermore, it concluded the often unfinished narrative that surrounds spilled food and inspires speculation about what events allowed to rat to come into possession of the pizza in the first place.

 

With the exception of 3 images that I set up (The Sunbather, Melons, and "Subway"), all these scenes were found. I looked for extraordinary instances of spilled food or drink; I didn't want to settle for common sights of a lone french fry or spilled soda bottles. I kept a keen eye out for spilled meals while walking around the city and searched outside of popular restaurants during their lunch rush or pizzerias on weekend nights, cynically hoping that some carless, intoxicated individual stumbles and drop an entire pizza. These photos draw attention to such a normal aspect of city life that is often ignored and may also highlight the abundance of food waste created by New Yorkers every year. The total of all the food shown is only 0.00000004538% of the roughly 650,000 tons of annual waste in New York State.