I am excited to announce the winner for the “Surreal” weekly assignment is Luke Ding from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
The reason I love his photograph is the strange and ghostly feeling that it evokes. It looks like a person sitting at a bus stop, but the body seems to melt into the background, and strangely enough the head is quite dark. The patterns in the middle of the frame look like knives (or ninja stars) going into the body of the ghostly apparition. The high contrast black and white and grittiness adds to the surreal feeling for me as well.
Runners-up
The first runner-up is Longwen Chen, who was also also featured for the Week #6 “Emotion” assignment. When I first look at the image, it looks like a cascade of black water falling back on the man standing in the center of the frame. The reflections of the plastic around him are quite alluring, and the heavy machinery in the background he is working on adds to the tension. What I feel would have made this image stronger is if I could see the man’s face (and not just his back).
The second runner-up is Sacha Lenz. The first thing I see when I look at the image is the beautiful black negative space, and the bright tiger that pops out from the background. Whenever I think of tigers, I think of power and aggression, but in this photo the tiger looks quite docile and calm. Strangely enough in the top right corner of the frame, you have an open door with a person exiting the scene through the white light. It gives the photo a very surreal and strange feeling, but I have a difficult time linking the subject of the tiger and person leaving the scene. Also I find the left side of the frame a little empty (although the negative space is nice). I also love the textures and contrast of this image as well.
Stay updated for next week’s weekly assignment on my Facebook fan page!
Also the winner of this assignment is purely my opinion, so if you have any differing opinions please leave a comment below (and tell us why!) And please keep it constructive :)