The Black Swan

The concept of a Black Swan used to be something that did not exist, before the discovery of Australia it was believed swans were not any other colour but white.

'The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable' is a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb- a philosophy/literary book which explains the term of a black swan as a small insignificant event that leads to a huge impact and could even change the world. They are so insignificant that we don't even realise they have caused the effect and this increases the impact they have. This focus on the insignificant could be used somehow in our shoot as we could use something that perhaps is not nwcessarily massively iconic but is a little bit more insignificant? It has inspired me to try and be more creative with what we will do for our final images, rather than going for the obvious.

The Black Swan movie:

This psychological thriller is about a girl named Nina, played by Natalie Portman, who is chosen as the lead for Swan Lake and begins to lose her mind under the pressure of performing. It is an intense film that reveals the brutality behind the beauty of ballet.
Mila Kunis- who plays Portman's, confident, free-spirited dancing rival has said on the ballet industry:

"I can't even put into words to you how competitive the ballet industry is. It's so small. They work their entire lives to try to achieve perfection that's inevitably impossible. And their career ends at 35, at best. I think that's why. Because how many prima ballerinas can you name, but how many movie stars can you name? It's very small - they're creatures all of their own kind."
                                                                                                                                                  Mila Kunis

This dark take on something that is seen as elegant, beautiful and graceful could be used in our images. Our aim is to take something that is seen in one way and show it in another and this film is a good representation of that.

Gothic concepts and ideas seem to be something that may be around in the future as Nicola Formichetti- the new creative director of Thierry Mugler, debuted her first collection on the first day of Paris Mens Fashion Week- "Anatomy of Change."

These images are almost about turning somebody inside out and bringing whats on the inside to the surface. They are quite dark and horror-esque with the illusion of somebody pulling the skin from their face. I think the images are fascinating and are another way of showing just how extreme we can be with our final images. I have also noticed that they have used an apple on the top of the headpiece to represent it going through a spike. This ties in really well with the surrealist painting Michelle found by Magritte of the painting 'The Lovers', and is something we should keep in mind if we are to choose it as our original image.
by Kate Murray