meg wachter: dumped.

Sure, one of the many amazing things about photography is its ability to capture the essence and emotion of one split-second in time. Moments that may have run by too quickly had the shutter not been there to snap it up. Of course, this can run the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime. In my opinion, the work of NYC-based Meg Wachter is both.

There’s something so undeniably Grade Three foodfight-in-the-caféteria cool about “Dumped” – a photographic series in which Watcher takes pictures of various foods falling onto her friends’ heads. It’s brilliantly stupid, the kind of totally unexpected thing that ends up being more fantastic the more you look at it.

A good picture captures emotion: here we have joy, delight, and shock. She’s attacked each picture perfectly, captured just the right millisecond and that exact instance in between each subject waiting for the dump and recovering from the surprise of the dump. Her subjects are right in the very middle of the physical response to the weird feeling of whatever has been slopped on them – it’s a perfect shot of pure, unadulterated, visceral reaction. You can see their bodies moving outside the control of their brain. It’s total emotion. But most of all, and what makes these such interesting picture, you can plainly see the joy, the weirdness, and the exhilaration behind just how much fun they’re all having.

All Images © Meg Wachter Photography

Right now, I’d like to openly volunteer for Meg Wachter to dump anything she likes on my head at any time. I’m hoping I get an email…

Via my friend Jody’s must-read blog Eating Sandwiches