The story behind these images is a beautifully-hilarious one. A couple weeks ago I cooked some beets and while they boiled for hours on end, I noticed how beautifully red the water was. I did some research on dying clothing and decided to try it myself with an old shawl. While I was eating my delicious beets on a plate, I was simultaneously stirring in this shawl to the blood-red water. It was beautiful to watch the shawl turn light pink, then magenta then red. 

Since I didn’t eat all the beets I cooked, the next logical step was to add more beets to the mixture to make the dye stronger. I mashed up some beets and stirred them in, and left the pot and shawl to dye for several days. I would stir the conconction every few days to make sure everything was evenly soaked; and I was soon coming to realization of trying to clean this mess would be a process. 

Well the artist in me said this was not an opportunity to pass up, so the obvious thing was to take pictures of whatever happened. I found an empty shower stall in my college dorm, and brought my camera and flash. I made sure everything was all set, and slowly unearthed the sopping-wet-mashed-beet-fabric-mess. I flung it over a towel bar in the shower and proceeded to take pictures. 

As I was photographing, I was looking around and discovered that it looked like a crime scene. Red juice was all over the floor and splattered on the walls, and random chunks of beet had fallen on the floor. Quickly finishing up incase someone walked in and questioned what appeared to be a religious sacrifice, I began laughing at how ridiculous I looked. I was standing there with my camera on my belt, flash in my back pocket, trying to dump a pot of red water in the sink, the chunks had clogged the drain, and then this shawl was just hanging and dripping like a forgotten rag. 

Moral of the story is that it had been a long time since I had fully immersed myself in a shoot, and had random ideas and rolled with it; which is how I first got into photography. It was a nice reminder of taking chances and making messes and maybe an interesting image will happen. 

November 10th 2016 - Cambridge MA - College Dormitory Shower Stall

16mm - 1/60sec - f/4 - ISO400 - Flash at 1/32