Dmitry Chapala – Title unknown (201X)
I like the idea here. Porting body rituals undertaken in private into a public setting is always going to be something that gooses me.
The problem is: this is almost certainly ripping off an incontrovertibly better image–this photo by Igor Mukhin.
Plus the execution is sloppy as fuck. There is flat out no goddamn reason this image should’ve ever been anything other than horizontally oriented. It’s some offensively egregious #skinnyframebullshit.
Igor Chekachkov – Above (1 of 24) from Daily Lives series (2013)
There’s no sidestepping comparisons with Florian Beaudenon’s Instant Life.
Chekachov uses light in interesting ways but his composition chops lack Beaudenon’s rigor.
Yet, this image does two things Instant Life doesn’t: it demonstrates a patient reverence for the electric current of sensuality underlying bodily instantiation and an openness to being alone, together in the sometimes mundane, sometimes tempestuous sea of being.
Acetylene Eyes 