'Black'

If there's anything GCSE Design Technology taught me, it is that a mood board is pivotal to a good project, and I must say upon hearing of our task I was actually incredibly excited to get going. As a lover of visual imagery (in this day and age who isn’t), I really enjoyed the initial search for inspiration for the mood board, after some guidance in the computer suite as to how to tailor our searches to find the best images possible I was wholly impressed by the breadth and depth of the imagery I encountered. My deeply ingrained acrimony, and my mum having told me for years I don’t suit black, led me to focus mainly on the negative side of black as a colour. I spent the entire seminar attempting to find images that would allow me to pick fault, ignorantly disregarding the colour’s vast array of accolades. It was only once I drained the internet dry of its scathing effigies that I was forced to focus on these attributes. In a turn for the tables, I found myself thoroughly enjoying picking out the seemingly boundless positive sides of black, and much to my surprise I was left with a ‘love it’ folder fit to burst.

The hardest task will always be the cutting process, with so many interesting images and concepts,condensing so much information will always leave you feeling strangely heartbroken, but I guess these sacrifices are just the price you pay in this cut throat industry. After managing to whittle down my images to what I deemed to be the key few, I began to establish why these few stood out to me so much. I began to formulate my annotations, again a throwback to GCSE Design Tech that again I secretly enjoyed a bit too much. I’ve written briefly about some of my findings in my ‘RED’ post, but I have to say perhaps the most interesting thing to me was the 180 degree turn black has made from the colour of anarchy, to perhaps the most conservative and failsafe colour in the market.

I was also captivated about the psychological perception of black as an unfriendly colour, mainly due to cultural associations. Black has always been considered a colour of death in the western world, however its evil connotations are derived largely from pop-culture. Films and Tv shows often show the classic villain as dressed in black, take for example Darth Vader, the Wicked Witch of the West and Voldemort.

Following this notion, I liked the way that this 'unfriendly-ness' can be taken in a whole new way, and manipulated into a display of power, with strikingly powerful works by Matisse sharing a similar colour palette to communist propaganda, you get a real sense for black's capacity.

After the research exercise on ‘Black’ we were paired up and given instruction to conduct a photo shoot relating to a concept we had explored within our research. Having never conducted a photo shoot, and armed with only my iphone 5 camera, I have to say I was quite nervous about the whole thing.

To begin with I was unsure as to what route I wanted to take with the photo-shoot, having discovered a huge amount of information about black out during the creation of my mood board. After a few minutes of internal reflection, and my sardonic tendencies, I determined that one of the most striking features of black as a colour is its remarkable (and somewhat excessive) prevalence. Just a glance at my black trousers as I write this proves a point: black is unavoidable. I decided that the permeation of the colour into our daily lives is something I was keen to explore in our shoot. When teaming up, it seemed that my partner and I had very different visions for our creative direction. Me being me, I focused almost solely on black’s weaknesses, with Elle taking a slightly less cynical approach and deciding to focus on more of the positive sides of black as a colour in fashion.

After much deliberation and a quick scour of pinterest for inspiration, we decided that taking the more cynical stance would create the most dynamic story, as well as the most interesting compositions. Initially we had intended to involve dramatic lighting and a model in our shoot, however after many failed attempts (involving a whole lot of torches, paper silhouettes and an incident involving a smashed bottle of perfume), we were forced to abandon the plan in favour of producing some sort of decent content before the day was up. Luckily, we had anticipated these potential problems, and had established a plan B incase of an emergency. We agreed we would collect all our black items from our rooms, a task that forced us both to confront our black-hoarding affliction. My initial plan was to pile up the clothes and photograph them in varying locations across the city, to symbolise the ubiquitousness of black fashion within our society. However, questions were raised about how visually interesting this would be (understandably so). Elle suggested we use a typical urban scene and drape our objects in an interesting way over this back drop, again conveying the message that black saturates our society and dominates our choices as consumers. Unfortunately, the difficulties experienced earlier in the day, meant that the lighting for our shoot was less than desirable, nevertheless we went ahead with our project, and after the woes of the previous hours, we were rather proud of our achievements.

I have to say one of the main things I took from the shoot was the importance of planning ahead. We quite clearly could have done with dedicating enough time to allow us to make mistakes, rather than having to implicate an emergency plan within the closing hours of the day. But I guess we live and learn.

I really liked the way the reddish-orange brick and the autumn leaves, juxtaposed with the concrete creates an interesting yet bleak urban scene, somewhat mirroring the bleak associations that come with black. However, I wish we'd perhaps used less black clothing in the shot, as I feel as though the shot looks a little cluttered, which distracts from the desired bleakness of the composition.

Overall I really enjoyed the shoot in the end and look forward to how our work develops over the rest of the project.

#black #photoshoot #loveit #overit #moodboard #FCP