How Blaxploitation movies and music are inspiring for my Street Photography
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, then president of the Beverly Hills-Hollywood NAACP branch. (source: wiki)
First of all, to get in the mood, you should play this playlist:
Now that you are in the place, let me share my 10 favorite blaxploitation movies:
We are talking about movies made with a low budget available, but they contained some great music, with names like Curtis Ayfield, KJames Brown, Isaac Hayes. Action, beautiful women and even with powerful roles. Black cinema showed that it was also ahead in terms of issues that today are proposed as a sign of evolution. And certainly it was still a ghetto in which they were confined, but this does not detract from the value of the films.
I am struck by the cut that those films have, direct and with different dialogues from the mainstream cinema of that time. Furthermore, one of the things that I consider important is that the settings in the city can be seen and are co-stars of the stories in which the characters move.
You can therefore understand very well how the scenes can visually inspire the eyes of a street photographer. Hey guys, before I forget Shaft which is one of the most successful films in blaxploitation is directed by Gordon Parks, the master of photography to which I recently dedicated an article on this blog, and Super Fly was directed by his son Gordon Parks Junior.
Do you need other reasons to go to document yourself on these movies?
