Bound with rope at the wrists and ankles, a naked man lays limp in the arms of a larger woman who holds him by his waist and collar high above her head.
Here’s a captivating image, suggested by Pimmie, who wrote:
I have a picture for you by the Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf called Powerlifting.
I love the little details in this artwork, like the placing of the woman’s hands. She holds the man’s weight up on two very vulnerable spots on his body. Her dominance speaks from the look on her face alone. And I love her body shape in this context; a powerful stance on delicate shoes. [I love t]he surrender in the man’s pose.
The overall impression of this picture, for me, is of a woman showing her prey or catch.
“Surrender” is so often linked with failure or loss, things that are in turn associated with negative connotations of “submission.” But surrender is also, and simply, the cessation of resistance. It can be an act of acceptance or an embrace; not a failure to assert, but an action motivated by the desire to explore or, sometimes, to relax.
Compositionally, I’m conflicted about posting this image here because the subject is ambiguous; is the photo more about her, or him? Ultimately, of course, they both contribute to it. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, one of [Erwin Olaf’s] early photographs was once expelled from a show on the basis of not containing nudity.
Clearly, any criteria may always cut both ways.
