Plant your feet on the ground and propel
2001

In her Mosh Pit series, Janine Gordon captures the unique combination of thrashing violence and graceful motion that occurs in a punk-rock concert's mosh pit—a crowd that forms spontaneously when audience members dance and throw themselves against each other with Dionysian abandon. In this grainy, black-and-white photograph, the frenzied action is stilled and the young men's bodily gestures suspended at moments of powerful, self-expressive beauty: one man is caught mid-dance, another is apparently restraining the pair next to him, and a third looks straight at the camera, frozen. "I become part of the pit and ad-lib when I shoot it," explains Gordon. "I'm still moshing—I have to or I'll get hurt. I do find the pits frighteningly sexual, but it's the thrill of the moment that leads me there in the first place."