04

I struggled a lot with this assignment ; this would be my epic failure

I found it hard to meet with my models a second time but I tried to work with
what I had already taken, I think I needed more obvious clues that could relate
to the song or that the colors were more similar in the photos. I also think this
could have used a third or fourth panel...

03

I'm unsure if my pictures and the song go together or even tell a story ; I think I lost myself in this project a little bit. The pictures I did take helped me create an actual character, someone bold, tough, and elusive & secondary character meant to be "Tom Waits" longing for this girl ; Anyways, here is what I have:

02

"Black Market Baby " Tom Waits Lyrics

She lives in a house
That's way back off the road   

There's a man with a lantern
And he carries her soul
 

A coal stove and a bed
A skillet and a hound
She drove a camel through a needle
In this sinking board walk town
She's my black market baby
She's my black market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

I swang out wide with her
On hells iron gate
Anything that you wanted
You could have
My eyes say their prayers to her
Sailors ring her bell
Like a moth mistakes a light bulb
For the moon and goes to hell

She's my black market baby
She's my black market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

There's no prayer like desire
There's amnesia in her kiss
She's a swan and a pistol
And she will follow you like this
In Moberly, Missouri at the
Iroquois Hotel
She checked in with the President
And she ran up quite a bill

She's my black market baby
She's my black market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

She's whiskey in a teacup
She gives blondes a lousy name
She's a bonzai Aphrodite
And a ticket back to Spain
She's a hard way to go
And there ain't no way to stop
Every time you play the red
The black is coming up

She's my black market baby
She's my black market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
She wants to stay coal
My baby wants to stay coal
Coal
Coal
My baby wants to stay coal 

;; I highlighted the important parts of the song I wanted to try and convey with

the photos I'm to take, I have a few location spots in mind as well that would

help with the feel/mood of this song and the character.

01

Inspiration photos ; I haven't been able to go out and shoot due to conflicting schedules but this Friday I'm supposed to get together with my model, I should be able to post the photos by Monday.

TELLING A STORY ; 00

When given this project, I really was unsure of what I should do, but the first thing that came to mind was creating a character and setting a mood; The connective thread that would link all these images together would be through the colors. I wanted to tell the story of someone who has an elusive and alluring quality to them. Someone you may want to know more about. I wanted to create a character like Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffanys but with a little more edge like Laura from the noir movie Laura. Then I thought about music and how music creates a mood and by creating the character that Tom Waits is singing about in Black Market Baby would be perfect.

I think the lyrics are creative and they themselves create a story. The song is really descriptive which helps to capture and create this character through photography. I loved the line "She's a diamond that wants to stay coal" and makes me think this lady is one to always been seen around wearing red lipstick and a fur coat.

DESIGN 4 MEDIA ; FINAL

I originally wanted to incorporate a fourth panel which would have been a photo of her capture, a sailor. The poem would also be assumed to have been written by him, but because I wasn't able to add that element to this series, I think even without it the three images still hold on their own. I think the images allow the piece to have a little more mystery and when looking upon it, it could be assumed that the viewer is the capture or that perhaps these images and chicken scratch thoughts are just close knit treasures hidden in the capture's journal ; just blown up, making it more real, and making the viewer perhaps a little uneasy. That what they are seeing, they weren't meant to see. That it was a secret. 

I suppose I could also say, I'm displaying it in such a way that may be close to what a freak show at a circus would be like, uplifting the curtain to show the viewer something that they are curious about and can't believe is real, it's in your face and it's blunt and you can't look away.


The poem it self is quite simple, basically saying how could this creature who appears to be helpless and so beautiful be something that is the opposite; Unknown and very scary. I wanted there to be a magical yet restless quality about this series as well as wanting to develop and create a story. I wanted to make the impossible, possible. dream a little, exaggerate even more with this concept of mermaids.



As I had stated before, I wanted the mermaid to appear as though she is luring the viewer closer which goes along with the history of their seductiveness. Even though the tables have turned and she is the one captured and in an unknown environment she still holds that mysterious and scary quality.


I printed all three images (8.5 x 11) on transparency paper to go along with the whole concept that she is from the sea, the transparency has that see through, watery appearance. Also, to go back on how her capture could see through her tricks in attempt to capture her. I also didn't want to show images of her as a whole, because she isn't. She is "chopped up" and in an environment not of her understanding, she is skewed, along with her tail that seems to be disappearing, or that she is getting weaker.

I ultimately wanted these to be framed and hung on the wall.