paris 2002 Untitled

This is one of a series that I shot in the 18th century

underground mass grave in Paris, known as The Catacombs.

Believe it or not, I took these shots on 50 ISO slide film, without a

flash, in rooms illuminated by a 100 watt bulb as far away as 50

feet. Flash photos were forbidden (which didn't stop a lot of

people) and I only had the film in my camera at the time. The

exposure, taken with a Gossen LunaPro, varied from 2.5 to 7

minutes at f3.5. Due to maximum reciprocity failure, all the slides

came out lime green. Fortunately, I was able to rescue them with

photoshop, using a lot of channel mixer and curves. The feeling

of being there wasn't nearly as eerie as these photos suggest,

but it was still a very moving experience. This one in particular

has a bit of a mystery to it in that there is a tenant missing. I

couldn't help myself but to put the space right in the middle, and

position the camera to create a sort of looming presence. I'd

appreciate any comments/ratings on this and any of the others

in this folder, I think they're the strongest I've taken recently.

Thank you and Carpe Diem.

The empty spot is like a mouth that the viewer is drawn into, lead in from the upward pointing of the bone ends massed below the skulls. And the darkening of the corners also pulls the viewer into the space of that void.

 

Cropping out the dark horizontal section would make the hole the darkest element of the image, further concentrating our attention on it. Additionally, the pile would seem more like an endless wall of bone.

Yikes! What is this?

Any info? It's hard to critique without any info. News photos should have information to them so people understand better what is going on.

As a result, it's hard to say if this is shocking or cool. Shocking if its a result of ethnic cleansing as in Bosnia, cool if it's a ritual by an ancient people.

New:Your comment doesn't show up in the critique forum. This is great. I remember the catacombs and now I remeber where I saw this arrangment before.