“Some people live on the block, I just live under it.” All images © Ben Zank, shared with permission
The ordinary collides with the bizarre in ’s photography. Set on the street, on construction sites, or in grassy fields, his surreal images capture subjects in unequivocally inconvenient positions: A businessman finds himself trapped under a concrete block, a wood pile stacks atop one figure, and another precariously grasps the edge of a sinkhole. Often hiding their faces behind barriers or through a distinctly avoidant turn of the head, Zank anonymizes his subjects, making their awkward predicaments appear all the more inevitable and bound to happen to unassuming passersby.
Find an archive of the New York City-based photographer’s strange situations on and .
“Blocked”
“Stay alert”
“Logical thinking”
“The Last Grasstronaut”
“I think I’m falling for you”
Left: “Caught on tape.” Right: “Mixed signals”
“Moonwalker”