TITLE: From the Ground Up

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, Alice finds a world that is familiar, and yet not quite right. After reading a poem in the looking-glass world, she notes: `Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas -- only I don't exactly know what they are!’ Seeing something we don't quite understand gets us thinking.

People stare as I kneel in puddles with a tripod-mounted camera pointing at the ground. I am staring too, but at shapes and tones and textures in a looking-glass world. This world is in a city. That's where I live. It's a place in which almost every square inch has been utilized for some human purpose. A landscape made from the earth, its ingredients separated, ground up and reconfigured to form a new environment. In From the Ground Up I use reflections to explore this environment, looking down to see what's up. By keeping both the ground and the reflection in focus, the city is shown as a multi-layered place. In the digital darkroom, to create what I like to think of as “imagination space,” the images are converted to black-and-white and flipped vertically, transporting us, like Alice, into the looking-glass world.

AUTHOR: Steve Geer (United States)

I am a self-taught photographer. I live in Chicago.

I started taking commercial stock photographs in 2004, and progressed to fine art photography in 2014. Fine art photography motivates me to go the extra mile. My photographs have been published in Apogee Magazine, DODHO Magazine, Adore Noir, Monovisions Magazine, and Silvershotz Magazine. My work has received recognition in various international competitions including 2nd prize for the cityscapes category in the Fine Art Photography Awards 2015, a nomination for the cityscapes category in the Fine Art Photography Awards 2016, and a remarkable artwork award in the Siena International Photography Awards 2016.

Since October 2015 I have been represented in the Perspective Fine Art Photography Gallery in Evanston, Illinois. My work was shown in a featured photographer show at the gallery in February 2016 and a solo show in April 2017. I have also shown work in various group exhibitions in other U.S. galleries.