monkeygogo

5050 : ONI 鬼 - A Ghosty Month Special

Added 2021-08-23 11:50:20 +0000 UTC

This weeks theme is the Oni, which is a kind of Yokai/Ogre/Demon thing from Japan. They're often feature in both traditional and pop cultural art as muscular bodied humanoids with loin clothes and a spiked club! Personally I find them kinda comical but love the aesthetics and they've been the focus of a few art projects!

In many Asian Cultures the 15th night of the seventh month on the Lunar Calendar (or 22nd August in 2021 the Gregorian Calendar) marks the start of the Ghost Month!

During this month, the gates of underworld are opened up and ghosts are free to roam the earth where they seek food and entertainment.

Quite different to Halloween is that Asians tend not to dress up and make a celebration of it, rather than that its more of a veneration of the deceased where certain observations are practiced.

Family members offer prayers to their deceased relatives, offer food and drink and burn Bank of Hell notes and other forms of joss paper offerings and incense. Live performances are also played out in theaters where the first row of seats are always empty as this is where the ghosts sit.

There are also a whole host of taboos and things not to do (https://www.digmandarin.com/chinese-ghost-month.html).

Irrelevant of your beliefs every culture has there own customs which may seem odd to outsiders. However I think when you try to educate and learn about other cultures you soon find them very interesting and intriguing.

My Favorite shot of this week has to be this picture:

The focus is incredibly sharp and the profile of the body is incredibly curvy. I've been having trouble getting shots in focus recently and i'm not really too sure why! But certainly this shot is beautifully focused - I hope all my future shots turn out like this!

More to come real soon!

- Monkeygogo