Some Sketches

[Andyman]

Consolation. The wives of the condemned traitors were brought together with them to the gallows hill to be forced to watch their husbands punishment. However they looked so proud and aristocratic and didn't answer any questions nor welcomes that finally people start to shout to punish them as well. Vox populi vox Dei est - or, as the Romans used to say, on the will of the Roman citizens - SPQR - the women were sentenced to death. However they still didn't say a single word nor begged for mercy when informed by the praetors that they would soon follow their men, so they were quickly stripped naked and two soldiers with axes went to the forest to bring two beams more for them. The wives smiled sad to one another and they exchanged a final sisterly hug before being hanged next to the males and left to die the most terrible death - still proud and silent (well, after few groans during the rape and nailing).

 

[Andyman]

3 x 3...

 

[Andyman]

4 x 1.

 

[phlebas]

Consolation. The wives of the condemned traitors were brought together with them to the gallows hill to be forced to watch their husbands punishment. However they looked so proud and aristocratic and didn't answer any questions nor welcomes that finally people start to shout to punish them as well. Vox populi vox Dei est - or, as the Romans used to say, on the will of the Roman citizens - SPQR - the women were sentenced to death. However they still didn't say a single word nor begged for mercy when informed by the praetors that they would soon follow their men, so they were quickly stripped naked and two soldiers with axes went to the forest to bring two beams more for them. The wives smiled sad to one another and they exchanged a final sisterly hug before being hanged next to the males and left to die the most terrible death - still proud and silent (well, after few groans during the rape and nailing).

ok, I really like this one. It's a bit different, in subject and in framing, and the more I look at it the more I like it. The husbands are cropped, enough to show them in their naked discomfort but preventing them from dominating the picture. The wives take centre stage, the older one's grey hair peaking around the head of her younger partner as she gives one last comforting hug. Plenty of bare flesh but nothing overtly sexual is on display, that is left for us to imagine knowing what is soon to come. I always like mixed scenes, men and women coming to terms with each other's nudity and suffering, these women about to share the ordeal of their men so starkly displayed in front of them.
I nice, tender scene loaded with promise of the future.

 

[Andyman]

Mercy.
OK, it costed nothing: there was plenty of leaves around.
And the cover was not especially dense.
Nor it is everlasting: after few hours it would become limp and withered, leaving the poor girl really naked and feeling even more embarrased than if she's simply stripped naked from the very beginning.

 

[Andyman]

Defenceless.

 

[Andyman]

Strained.

 

[Andyman]

Enslaved as a young girl she had been travelling along the Silk Road for five years before finally was sold by the Persian merchants to the Roman citizen - only to die on the cross, suspected of whichcraft.

 

[Juan1234]

After the Spanish Wiki, with English and Polish translations.

Awesome - I wrote that Spanish part!!

 

[Loxuru]

ok, I really like this one. It's a bit different, in subject and in framing, and the more I look at it the more I like it. The husbands are cropped, enough to show them in their naked discomfort but preventing them from dominating the picture. The wives take centre stage, the older one's grey hair peaking around the head of her younger partner as she gives one last comforting hug. Plenty of bare flesh but nothing overtly sexual is on display, that is left for us to imagine knowing what is soon to come. I always like mixed scenes, men and women coming to terms with each other's nudity and suffering, these women about to share the ordeal of their men so starkly displayed in front of them.
I nice, tender scene loaded with promise of the future.

I completely agree with Phlebas about that pic!

 

[Aedile]

Enslaved as a young girl she had been travelling along the Silk Road for five years before finally was sold by the Persian merchants to the Roman citizen - only to die on the cross, suspected of whichcraft.

What a poor, unfortunate girl. She should have been loved and treasured, with a husband who adored her and whose children she carried. Instead, the steppe nomads kidnapped her when they burned her village, and she spent her young womanhood pleasuring the old Persian merchants she was sold to.

Her newest master, this “Roman,” found her praying to her village gods when he stumbled into her tent drunk one night. She went up on the cross the next morning. She is ready to die; her life ended when the first nomad turned her around and pumped his seed into her womb while her village burned. She can endure a few hours of pain if it means all of this is over.

 

[Andyman]

Burned at the sunset.

 

[Andyman]

Jewish sons of a bitch with their mother.

 

[Andyman]

Solitude.

 

[Hangnail]

Burned at the sunset.

This is a great image, but it is very difficult to make a high-contrast version because the background is not uniform: it's bright at the top and dark at the bottom left. If possible, it's better if the background is all the same shade of grey. Or ideally white...

 

[Loxuru]

Jewish sons of a bitch with their mother.

My caption when I saw it first : 'During her life, the queen never could not choose between her two young lovers!' Now the dilemma is crucified. she dies between them, but none of them can touch her anymore.

 

[Andyman]

We, Arabs never will understand the Romans.

 

[Hangnail]

My caption for this would be: Arab enjoying the fate of a Jewess at the hands of the Romans.

Just to illustrate the challenges posed by a non-uniform background, here is my best effort at a high-contrast version. Because the original background lighting is bright on the left and dark on the bottom right, you end up with an image that's washed-out on the left, and has shadow at the bottom right.

 

[Andyman]

Sorry, sometimes I have no possibility to use scanner and the camera catches all the differences between the shades.

 

[Andyman]

Impaled.