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“The
photographs in this series are large color prints depicting
urban Southern landscapes eerily lit by red neon lights.
The location is primarily Birmingham, Alabama, which has
a look defined by its own peculiar growth and development.
There is a proximity of the urban and the rural that can
only occur because of the confluence of certain events.
What I have photographed—lightning, shotgun houses,
kudzu, social clubs, the view of the city from the base
of the Appalachian Mountains, each reflecting neon light—epitomize
the growth and development of the region. I see elements
that are particularly Southern, the cultural and political
history of the place has left its mark on the look of the
city.
The photographs appear to be altered or staged, but that
is not the case. The garish colors and bizarre landscapes
are found in the environment. The bright orange-red colors
are from neon signs casting light in isolated areas at dusk.
If you visited one of the sites at a similar time, the site
would appear as it does in the photographs. The images in
this series have a serenity but portend a more complex meaning.”
Recently she began a project in black and white that documents
major life events and, delves into family relationships,
particularly comparing biological and non-biological family
ties. Rieger, who was adopted, found her birth-mother, birth-father
in Germany and three half-siblings.
She explained, “As I was finding new family members,
my brother, with whom I was raised, was very ill and finally
died of Complications from AIDS. He and I were close in
spirit and in age, and throughout our lives we were mistaken
as twins. I took photographs of him as he slowly slipped
away. After his death I used the photographs to illuminate
his life and death and began a parallel project to document
the extraordinary meetings with my new family members. In
the midst of this I was told stories by strangers about
their family experiences. There were many similar threads
and many poignant stories. Since then I have combined the
text of the stories with portraits of the subjects. ”
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