Great challenge. Ben is one of my favourite photographers and influences on DPC and the main reason i got myself the 10x ND. I was pleased with the results of using it on this image... ... and i've done something similar here although it was less needed due to the lesser light. But i like using it anyway as it certainly adds something to an image rather than using a much smaller aperture.
I think some people may see the colour as being non-typical of Ben's work (although he's not always B/W of course) but i'm not after a complete imitation of his great images but rather add my own take to his influence. Likewise i think this may be a bit too dark and contrived for him as he is often more spontaneous and more upbeat but i like a bit of grubby and spooky theatricality.
Very little post processing done on this really. A very slight crop and i had to lighten the shadows to stop the blacks clipping so much. Then some dodging on the boy and steps and that was it.
Oh, and it's not a cellar. It's the wooden steps down into part of the ruined Usk castle.. Only a few miles from me it's one of my favourite castles in Wales, mainly because it is not CADW (the official body looking after built heritage in Wales) and is privately owned which means it's beautifully overgrown and wild and has chickens and other animals roaming about in it. Not that i'm knocking CADW- It's just that they landscape the hell out of these lovely castles when i like a bit more wildness really. Also, their health and safety would have done for these rickety wooden steps and they probably would have sealed this particular tower off as not fit for visitors.
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Place: 5 out of 156 Avg (all users): 6.6460 Avg (commenters): 8.3333 Avg (participants): 6.7342 Avg (non-participants): 6.4412 Views since voting: 3391 Views during voting: 246 Votes: 113 Comments: 31 Favorites: 8 (view)
Beautifully done and such a treat to see color in the top ten .. it fills my mind with so many possibilities as to why that little child is sitting on the stairs .. thank you .. and congratulations.
How did I miss this even in my incomplete voting and commenting? You do with colour what Ben does in black and white, similarities to cited Benphoto notwithstanding. There is a thrilling vibration of a strange archetype. Wonderful to see this on the front page.
This is a splendid photograph. We tend to forget how small we felt when reprimanded. My wife had a more painful and horror filled interpretation. Proof that color can be emotionally exploited.
This in a POWERFUL image. Very powerful. I only gave it a 6 in my voting phase, but as I go through commenting on some of the entries, I feel I was too harsh on this and feel an 8 is more appropriate for this.
At first glance, an abstraction of terror. Subsequent glances are more disturbing. It's a metaphor many of us can relate to, even if we'd rather not. It's much easier, after all, to just look away...
We can't see the child's face. The face could be yours or mine and the cellar some dark part of our past we'd rather not explore or revisit. We do our best to endure it (as shown here by the child's mannerly posture) but it never really leaves us. It sits alongside us. Dark against light. Color against pallor.
This one registers with the psyche.
I'd be remiss if I closed my commentary without relating this in some way to our Man of the Week. Ben's images are efficient like this in their ability to stir the imagination. His imagination is fertile. That's why I enjoy his work, and it's why I enjoy this. This one is my pick of the challenge, and I suspect it will be high on his list as well.
(And thank you for reading my ten thousandth instance of dilettante drivel here...)
excellent painting. just a thought regarding the title: i would let the viewers guess where this is happening. they might come up with their own ideas. (not voting)
Marvelous image. Very powerful and rich. Can't say it's particularly Bennish, but it is excellent. Killer light, and just enough texture and detail in the negative space to make me be afraid. Be very afraid.
This is one of those shots than is kind of creepy, yet wonderful. Upon 3rd review, I'm upping the score. It'd make a killer book jacket for a mystery about a lost kid. You even have the title. Good luck.
A very powerful picture of all the fear of childhood. But I feel that it was too much worked on and it lost the candid quality, that all the trebling was not there and just added - I think that I do not make myself too clear. But I like this shot a lot though and for the boy's little sweaty hands I keep it for a long time in front of me.
Back to comment... So thought provoking. Sad, scary, terrifying even. I could probably write you a book of a comment about this, but won't simply because it makes me sad. 10
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