high contrast – Greg Urbano

Deadpool Lucha Libre: Chromatic Drama in Miniature

The photograph of a Marvel Lucha Libre Funko Pop Deadpool figure exemplifies a blend of commercial and fine art photography. Utilizing dramatic lighting and technical precision, it transforms a mass-produced collectible into a subject of contemplation. The piece reflects the cultural hybridity of its character, bridging traditional still life with contemporary themes.

Studio photograph of a Marvel Lucha Libre Deadpool Funko Pop figure standing on a reflective black surface against a dark background. — A studio still life of a Marvel Lucha Libre Funko Pop Deadpool figure posed on black acrylic.

Within Chapter 5’s exploration of tabletop still life—from classical arrangements to experimental departures—this photograph of the Marvel Lucha Libre Funko Pop! figure demonstrates the photographer’s command of dramatic lighting and his willingness to elevate commercial objects into subjects worthy of sustained contemplation. The piece functions as both technical exercise and cultural commentary, bridging the gap between traditional product photography and fine art still life.

The composition centers on El Chimichanga De La Muerte, the Deadpool variant rendered in the distinctive aesthetic of Mexican lucha libre wrestling. Against an uncompromising black void, the figure emerges through carefully controlled illumination that recalls the chiaroscuro techniques of Dutch Golden Age painting. The photographer has employed a Godox AD100 with gridded softbox to create a focused pool of light that caresses the figure’s surfaces while allowing the background to recede entirely. This technical choice—stark, theatrical, unforgiving—transforms what might have been simple documentation into something approaching portraiture.

The red and gold color palette dominates with painterly intensity. The matte finish of the vinyl catches light selectively, creating subtle gradations across the mask’s sculptural forms. Each stitch line in the figure’s costume becomes a shadow-casting element, adding textural complexity to what is, in reality, molded plastic. The photographer’s choice of the Tamron 35mm f/2.8 lens on his Sony A7II suggests a deliberate approach to depth and perspective—close enough to capture minute details, yet distant enough to maintain the figure’s proportional integrity and comic heroism.

What elevates this work within the chapter’s trajectory is its dialogue between high and low culture. Funko Pop! figures exist as mass-produced collectibles, yet the photographer treats this specimen with the reverence typically reserved for precious antiquities or fine crafts. The shirtless, muscular torso—absurdly rendered in the Funko aesthetic with its characteristic oversized head and simplified body—becomes an exercise in form and volume under his lighting scheme. The reflection on the glossy black surface beneath adds a layer of sophistication, grounding the floating figure in space while doubling its visual presence.

The image represents a contemporary evolution in still life photography where the distinction between commercial and fine art intentionally blurs. By applying gallery-level lighting techniques to a pop culture artifact, the photographer participates in a broader artistic conversation about value, nostalgia, and the objects we choose to collect and immortalize. The lucha libre variant itself carries layers of cultural hybridity—an American comic character filtered through Mexican wrestling tradition, then reimagined as a Japanese-influenced vinyl toy.

The technical execution is nearly flawless. Exposure is carefully balanced to preserve detail in both the deepest reds and the highlighted edges of the mask. The black background shows no distracting gradients or light spill, evidence of precise modifier control and post-processing restraint. This discipline allows the figure to exist in a realm of pure focus, removed from context yet somehow more present because of that isolation.

Within the broader context of Chapter 5’s examination of still life evolution, this photograph demonstrates how experimental approaches need not abandon classical principles. The work honors centuries of still life tradition while embracing decidedly modern subject matter, creating a bridge between photographic eras.

Color Drip: Materiality and Motion in Contemporary Still Life

This photograph showcases multicolored paint dripping over a black mannequin head, representing the photographer’s exploration of paint as both subject and medium. By removing human elements, the focus shifts to paint’s properties and gestures, merging classic still life with contemporary material investigations. The composition embodies a dynamic interplay of control and chaos.

Close-up of a black mannequin head covered in glossy, multicolored paint dripping downward against a dark background. — Multicolored paint drips over a black mannequin head in a controlled studio setup.

Within the broader context of tabletop photography’s evolution from classical arrangement to experimental intervention, this photograph represents a decisive moment in the photographer’s exploration of paint as both subject and sculptural medium. The image captures viscous streams of color—green, yellow, red, and blue—descending across a black textured surface in fluid, organic patterns that suggest simultaneous control and surrender.

The composition reveals its conceptual origins while transcending them. Inspired by a live model photograph encountered on social media, the photographer sought to recreate similar effects using a styrofoam mannequin head painted black. This substitution proves significant: by removing the human element, the work shifts focus entirely to the material properties of paint itself—its weight, viscosity, and the temporal nature of its movement. The textured black surface, likely meant to simulate skin or hair, instead becomes an abstract topography across which color flows according to gravitational and physical laws.

Technically, the photograph demonstrates sophisticated handling of surface and light. The glossy quality of the wet paint creates highlights that map the three-dimensional contours beneath, while the matte black texture provides counterpoint and depth. The color palette—primary hues plus white—reads as deliberately elemental, avoiding the complexity of mixed tones in favor of pure chromatic statement. Each rivulet maintains its individual identity even as the colors converge and overlap, creating secondary interactions at their edges without complete integration.

The formal composition operates through diagonal movement and asymmetrical balance. The paint flows establish dynamic vectors across the frame, leading the eye downward and around the curved forms. The black areas function as negative space that gives structure to the chromatic chaos, while the textured surface adds a reptilian or industrial quality that complicates the otherwise organic flow patterns. This tension between the fluid and the fixed, the organic and the manufactured, activates the image beyond mere documentation of an experimental process.

As one of the first edits from this experimental series, the photograph captures the photographer working through ideas in real time. There exists a certain rawness here—an directness in the setup and execution that speaks to initial discovery rather than refined methodology. The black background isolates the subject completely, a studio technique that emphasizes formal relationships over contextual meaning. This approach aligns with classic tabletop photography’s concern with controlled environments, even as the unpredictable paint drips push toward the experimental end of the chapter’s spectrum.

Within Chapter 5’s framework, this piece marks a transition from static arrangement toward time-based phenomena. The dripping paint implies duration—the moment before and after this frozen instant. Unlike traditional still life’s carefully positioned objects, here the photographer choreographs a performance, then selects the decisive moment from its unfolding. The work thus bridges historical still life concerns with contemporary interests in process, materiality, and the indexical trace.

What emerges is less a portrait substitute than an investigation into how materials behave under specific conditions. The styrofoam head becomes armature, the paint becomes protagonist, and the photograph itself becomes evidence of an ephemeral sculptural event. It represents the photographer thinking through his medium, testing possibilities, and documenting the results with the clarity and precision his technical skill affords.

Architectural Authority: The Denver Public Library

The photograph of the Denver Public Library showcases the interplay of monumental architecture and urban landscape. The black and white imagery emphasizes geometric shapes and textures, transforming harsh midday light into stark contrasts. This representation transcends mere documentation, reflecting civic aspiration and how societies express values through built form within the Colorado context.

Black and white view of the Denver Public Library exterior, showing a cylindrical central structure framed by angular stone façades. — The exterior of the Denver Public Library is shown in black and white in downtown Denver, Colorado.

In this commanding study of civic architecture, the photographer demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how monumental structures assert themselves within the urban landscape. Shot at midday when harsh overhead light typically challenges photographers, he transforms potentially difficult conditions into an asset, using deep contrast to emphasize the building’s geometric severity and sculptural mass.

The composition centers on the Denver Public Library’s distinctive cylindrical tower, which rises from the frame like a monolithic drum. The extreme upward angle, facilitated by his Samyang 18mm wide-angle lens, creates a dramatic sense of monumentality while the symmetrical flanking wings establish visual order. This architectural framework—circular form nested within angular geometry—speaks to postmodern design principles that dominated American civic architecture in the late twentieth century. The photographer’s decision to shoot in black and white strips away temporal markers and weather conditions, rendering the structure as a timeless study in form, shadow, and material.

What distinguishes this image within Chapter 3’s exploration of Colorado landscapes and cityscapes is its departure from natural grandeur toward human-made authority. Where mountain vistas offer sublime, untamed power, this photograph presents institutional permanence. The stone cladding, methodically rendered in graduated tones from light gray to near-black, becomes a study in texture and depth. The dramatic diagonal supports visible at the structure’s crown introduce dynamic tension, their angular thrust contrasting sharply with the tower’s curved facade.

The technical execution reveals maturity in the photographer’s approach to architectural documentation. Shot with the Sony A7ii, the image maintains clarity across multiple planes of depth despite the wide-angle distortion inherent to the 18mm focal length. The midday timing, often avoided by landscape photographers, proves deliberate here—the high sun creates stark shadows that carve out the building’s volumes and reveal the recessed windows as dark voids. This interplay between solid and void, light and shadow, transforms descriptive documentation into interpretive art.

The street lamp appearing at center-bottom provides crucial human scale, a reminder that this imposing structure exists within the pedestrian realm. Its modest presence underscores the building’s overwhelming verticality and mass. The text carved into the facade—”DENVER PUBLIC LIBR”—becomes both identifier and compositional element, the letterforms creating horizontal rhythm that grounds the tower’s upward thrust.

Within the photographer’s Top 100 Journey project, this image represents an important evolution. Chapter 3’s focus on Colorado landscapes and cityscapes broadens beyond wilderness to encompass how humans shape their environment. The library, as a democratic institution dedicated to public knowledge, carries symbolic weight that elevates the photograph beyond mere architectural record. It becomes a meditation on civic aspiration, on how societies express values through built form.

The conversion to monochrome proves essential to the image’s impact. Color would introduce distraction—blue sky, stone variations, surrounding urban context. Instead, the black and white treatment creates graphic clarity, emphasizing pattern, geometry, and tonal relationships. The nearly black sky becomes void, pushing the building forward as the sole subject demanding attention.

This photograph confirms the photographer’s ability to find compelling visual architecture within urban environments, applying the same compositional rigor and tonal sensitivity he brings to natural landscapes.

Stacked Chrome Muscle: The Architecture of American Power

In a 2014 throwback photo, Greg Urbano captures a chrome muscle car engine at a car show, transforming it into a sculptural testament of American automotive culture. The monochrome composition highlights its intricate details and engineering philosophy, transcending typical automotive photography into fine art, reflecting power and craftsmanship.

Black‑and‑white close‑up photograph of a chrome muscle car engine with multiple intake stacks, polished components, and detailed mechanical parts, taken with a Nikon D7100 at 24mm. — A 2014 black‑and‑white close‑up of a stacked chrome muscle car engine captured at a car show.

In this striking image from Greg Urbano’s early photographic explorations, the viewer encounters not merely an engine, but a sculptural monument to American automotive culture. Shot at a car show in 2014, this photograph demonstrates how technical documentation can transcend its utilitarian origins to become a meditation on form, texture, and cultural identity.

The composition centers on a magnificent array of individual throttle bodies—eight polished chrome velocity stacks rising like organ pipes from the engine block below. Urbano’s decision to shoot at f/8.0 provides exceptional depth of field, rendering every fluted trumpet in sharp detail while maintaining visual coherence across the crowded mechanical landscape. The MSD Digital 6AL ignition box in the upper left corner grounds the image in specificity, reminding us this is a real machine, not an abstract study.

What elevates this work beyond conventional automotive photography is the photographer’s masterful use of monochrome. The conversion to black and white strips away distraction and reveals the essential geometry of performance engineering. Chrome becomes a study in gradation—from brilliant highlights on the velocity stack lips to the deep blacks of the engine valley below. The ribbed valve covers create rhythmic patterns that echo throughout the frame, establishing a visual cadence that draws the eye deeper into the mechanical complexity.

The lighting deserves particular attention. Working with the ambient conditions of a car show—notoriously challenging for photographers—Urbano has captured specular highlights that accentuate the three-dimensional quality of each component. The reflections dancing across polished surfaces create a sense of movement and life in what is, paradoxically, a static object. One can almost hear the anticipated roar of this engine, feel the vibration of its operation.

From a curatorial perspective, this image belongs firmly within the “Beginnings” chapter of Urbano’s journey. It reveals a photographer discovering his eye, learning to see beyond the obvious. Car shows present a particular challenge: everything is designed to be spectacular, yet the very abundance of visual stimulus can overwhelm. Here, the photographer has exercised editorial judgment, finding a perspective that isolates and celebrates a single element of automotive excess.

The stacked throttle bodies themselves represent a specific philosophy in performance engineering—individual runners for each cylinder, optimized airflow, uncompromising dedication to power over practicality. This photograph captures that ethos perfectly. There is nothing subtle about this engine, and Urbano wisely chooses not to apologize for its maximalism. Instead, he leans into the drama, using his technical choices to amplify the subject’s inherent theatricality.

The 24mm focal length on his Nikon D7100 provides just enough wide-angle perspective to encompass the scene without introducing distortion that would undermine the precision of these machined components. Shot at 1/30th of a second—relatively slow for handheld work—the image’s sharpness suggests careful technique, perhaps braced against the engine bay or shot with controlled breathing.

This photograph documents more than machinery; it captures a particular strain of American automotive culture that values power, craftsmanship, and conspicuous performance. In rendering it so beautifully, Urbano elevates the vernacular tradition of car photography into something approaching fine art—a promising beginning indeed for a photographer learning to find extraordinary subjects in ordinary places.