P O W E R

Benjamin Von Wong is a Montreal based photographer who claims to take inspiration from all around him to create his shoots; ‘‘from life. From the world. From meeting people. From the people around me. I think the fantasy and epic aspect comes from never having grown up, from still seeing the world with heroes and villains, but it’s definitely those I meet in life that inspire me and move me."

The shoot I was particularly focused on was a shoot of people working out fitting with my theme of power. This shoot is classic black and white portraiture with high shutter speed/short exposure. I particularly like that the black and white theme and high contrast of the shoot complements the body's contours and highlights the definition in the muscles of the body. 

The purpose of this shoot is to represent hard work and intensity; these images represent power of the body and mind in my opinion. It is clear to see the struggle on the models'/athletes' faces and the power they much have to do what they’re demonstrating in the image. Majority of these images show a significant struggle on the models face. I like the extent of this because even if the body was covered the face would represent a person giving everything they have and putting all their energy into something - this is a good example of representing mental and physical power. Vice versa; if we covered the face of the, we could see the power within the body and the extent of the strength within the images. 

The setting of these images is very interesting. Again, I feel the black and white helps show highlights and shadows within the image and shows the definition through tone. The exposure of these images is just right - although it could look as though they were slightly underexposed this is simple due to the high contrast and the black background that the shadows blend with. 

One of my favourite images is Number 9. Image Number 9 is at a direct 90-degree angle from looking directly at the face. The lighting is coming in from all angles; we can clearly see highlights to the front/face, back and side where the arm and abdominal muscles are. These highlights in a dark room on a dark background show definition in the muscles in the models body. It's even possible to see the muscle fibres in the models shoulder. This shows strength and power is needed to correctly do what the model is demonstrating here. 

However Images Number 1 and 4 captured my attention - these images look more like a motion shot. In image number 4 we can clearly see the hair of the model is swung behind her in motion as she kicks something. Although we don't see definition of the body or muscles like the previous image (number 9) we can assume speed/strength by the composition of the image.