Rising
by WCpilot

Comment:
Simplistic lighting, powerful posture. Intruguing.
And highly underrated indeed...

Abu Ghraib revisited
by Mephisto

Comment:
Thanks for the crap load of responses to my entry everyone.
I knew I would stir up some trouble submitting this shot yet I was surprised to see so much positive feedback.
It only got one comment during the challenge that originally intended to offend in a personal way, but was later removed after I had contacted the person to ask him/her in which way he/she thought the photo was meant to concern a spefific polical manner, which from my intent does not. It's meant to be politically neutral meaning that it doesn't necessarily judge the torture scandal through the US regime, but ALSO all the violence, prisoner abuse, executions and torture that took place place way before the US military took over the prison.
I think that's what some people were missing... Violence as a whole, psychologic and physiologic torture, racism, humiliation- that's what this picture is about.
Anyway, the photo is acutally just a test shot for a friends art project he did for university so the whole idea of this is to be blamed on this dude (he's the guy in the photo himself). ;-)
So get this: his idea was to portray the word GEWALT which means "violence" with his body, posing nude and covered with actual swine blood in the basement of an abondend military base in the middle of the night.
I'll post the composed photo when i get back home.

Passersby
by Melethia

Comment:
haha all those macro and wildlife photogs didn't get it...
of course me likes body parts sticking out of photo's frames so this is great!

Kids in window
by Melethia

Comment:
great. these kida are now tramatized for there lifes having been faced with two photogs and cameras of that caliber at the same time...;-)

Quaint alley two
by Melethia

Comment:
is that a composite or a single exposure?
it's funny how it seems that they're all reaching for that" mistery" door while the darkness of the backalley on the left kinda gives it a scary-ish counter balance.

by lej

Comment:
amazing character!
his eyes are centred, which imo isn't ideal for a portrait like this. i would usually frame it so that the top of the head is cut off just a tad so his torso is visible down to his chest.

Juan Felipe, the worker man
by lej

Comment:
I love how you manage to naturally portrait people in your environment without the people looking forced to pose!
but you did use an external flash for this didnt you?

by lej

Comment:
great character! it has a distinct 70's feel from the clothing, b&w conversion and the "6x6" crop.
nice work!

by Mephisto

Comment:
thanks everyone for the comments. to answer a few questions:

Originally posted by Germaine: On the outside looking in?

nope. from the inside looking out. when i was walking along the road in this gypsy neighborhood with my romanian companion this lady came by, saw my camera and immidiately asked me if i could come with her to her and her husbands home and take some photos, so they could show them to some NGO in france where they wanted to move soon. her husband had some very bad illness on his leg which she wanted me to take photos of as well.

what held their attention in that moment i don't remember. the mood was rather depressing and sad due to their very poor situation so this must have been a rare moment of joy and laughter...perhaps my romanian pal made a joke that everybody except me understood; probably on my expense as well...;-D

by Mephisto

Comment:

Originally posted by Zigomar: Reflected light?

nah. plain and simple over-the-top processing...;-)