A Portrait of the Shit Left Behind at Reading Festival

The morning after any festival can be fairly uncomforting – and not just because you’re a 2 mile walk, train ride, and bus journey from your duvet. A lot of people leave behind rubbish and as you leave you start to glimpse the skeletons of the weekend’s activity; lonely shoes, burnt chairs, passed-out teenagers covered in damp serving as a reminder that Summer is over. You’re done: go home, have a shower, and have a long hard think about what you’ve done.

The rubbish shouldn’t be there (The planet is being ruined, idiots!), but it’s also pretty much unavoidable. And, in a way, it’s beautiful: trash tells a story and then it gets taken to rot in harmony somewhere alongside the River Thames where we never have to look at it again.

I knew that this weekend would be one of the last times I could legally look through other people’s trash*. So yesterday morning, as the bleary and the infected left Reading Festival, I walked around with my camera and took a few photos.

*until next Summer ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassil

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