Why not start with Sigur Rós..
After having a very stressful day, I thought I'd put on some music and just get away from it all for a while. Using Apple's new 'Apple Music' system, I chose a random playlist only to rediscover the amazing talent of an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros. Who knew that music could spark the ideas that followed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc6zXSdYXm8
BRENNISTEINN. {Brimstone}
The cinematography in this music video is probably one of my favourites. How it uses a mainly black and white but keeping that striking yellow colour to make your eyes follow the flow of the video. Whilst the colour is the most noticeable element in the video, what it represents is what most videos shy away from: act of danger and murder. I thought this was an interesting way of portraying the 'censored'; rather making it the real and not hidden.
With violent images/crime photography being quite a dark place to start, I will explore black and white photography and add subtle impacts of colour to them, just to bring them to life and explore different ways colour could effect a photograph.
This is a still from the music video. The smoke, still being the 'danger', is subtly shown through colour, yet I feel it's not overpowering factor in the still. The detail and clarity of the individual is what catches my eye first.
http://www.directorsnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/brennisteinn.jpg
Found this image very interesting. It almost feels like a different universe in a way, by making the reflection the reality.
http://wallpoper.com/images/00/38/97/12/bridge-reflection_00389712.jpg
I started looking into other photographs that use this technique of minimlist colour, and compared it to similar photograph of the same event/object. Using this I had the more knowledge about the impact before creating my own.
I feel this photograph could work either way. You could change the lips to black and white, and the rest colour, which could create a different story.
http://f.tqn.com/y/graphicssoft/1/S/L/H/6/478538891.jpg
Subtle transition into Autumn?
http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/color-splash-leaf-360x240.jpg
Festival of 'Holi'
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aZi1MLgoFQs/UQE8lRfoT6I/AAAAAAAAEvY/tg2ymnDF2Mg/s1600/holi-festival-black-and-white-photography-with-color-001_2.jpg
Still from 'Sin City'. Over emphasising the use of blood.
http://www.scifinow.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Arrow-Season-3-Katana.jpeg
Sin City, how could I forget about this movie. The cinematography is beautiful, and if you pause the film at anytime you get a great still with amazing composition. A lot of the styles and colour from Sin City is directly from the stills in the graphic novel, which I find interesting as they these 'still images' from comics and created a full film out of them.
I had a little search about, and came across a company called 'Phlearn' (http://phlearn.com) From what I've seen, they are a business that sell FX Packages for Photo Editing software (mainly Adobe Photoshop) and have very helpful techniques and videos to aid in the use of their packages. As well as selling, they also have a huge archive of free material that people can go through and learn a lot of different techniques within Photoshop.
They had a really interesting video for editing photography in the style of 'Sin City' which connects well with the previous concept about 'censoring' the violence.
However, the style portrayed in the video is a very studio based shoot. A lot of thought going into lightening, green screen and props. So very different to how a single photograph is taken then turned into black and white, as this is taking two different images of a subject, and a background and adding them together whilst editing.
http://phlearn.com/
http://phlearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Sin-City-Final-910.jpg
Still from 'Sin City'. Like Sigur Ros, yellow used as danger.
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/2/Open/EU%20VOD%20Releases/Sin%20City/Stills/_derived_jpg_q90_600x800_m0/Sin_City1.jpg?partner=allmovie_soap