Photo by Benoit Paille

I guess you could call it grief, in the flesh. Benoit Paille‘s portrait of a naked 53-year-old man sitting on a chair in his kitchen won the top prize at the Art of Photography competition this past weekend, beating out 15,000 other entries. Paille, who hails from Canada, said he met the man on the street and was invited back to his apartment, where the stranger stripped down and posed for him. He said he was grieving over recently losing his mother.

Judged this year by the head of photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the competition is meant to showcase photography from all over the world, by both amateurs and professionals, “so long as part of the image is photographically created.” The 111 photos in the show will be on view at the Lyceum Theatre Gallery in San Diego through November 1.

Article via NPR’s The Picture Show