Neges Dawel

Inside the image.

A square black-and-white photographic cover shows a close-up portrait of a man, with his head and shoulders filling nearly the whole frame. He faces the camera and looks out between the fingers of one raised hand, which dominates the foreground. The hand crosses diagonally from the lower centre towards the upper right, held close to the lens so it appears unusually large. Its palm obscures much of his nose, mouth and lower face; the eyes, brows and upper part of his face remain visible above and to the left of it. Dark handwritten lettering runs across the back of the hand and wrist, following the diagonal of the fingers and arm.

The man has short, swept-back hair with lighter strands at the temples, a lined forehead and a steady, direct gaze. He wears a dark top that merges with the shadowed lower edge of the image. The tightly cropped portrait leaves little space around him: the hand and face overlap at the centre, while a rough wall fills the background. The wall is divided by a vertical edge near the right side; its surface is mottled and worn, with darker patches and marks behind the left side of his head and a lighter strip at the far right.

The image uses a restricted range of greys, from the pale hand and face to the nearly black clothing and deep shadows. Soft, frontal light picks out the skin and hair while leaving the shirt and parts of the wall dark. The grainy, high-contrast photograph has the direct, unpolished appearance of a portrait made in available light. At the lower left, the name “huw chiswell” appears in small, thin, lowercase white lettering, set over the dark clothing. There is no visible border.