The images of British fashion and portrait photographer Darren Black reverberate with style, ripple with slickness and burst with colour, even when they’re printed in black and white.
Whether he’s shooting male models dripping in elaborate Butler & Wilson jewellery or others painted head-to-toe with skull tattoos for Hedonist Magazine; David Bowie tribute features for C Homme; geisha fashion features or sporty summer chic campaigns in Fantastics, a unifying undercurrent runs through all of Black’s work: one of pure, unadulterated eroticism. This is a man who could make a Bic biro ooze sauciness.
His aesthetically pleasing subjects have all perfected their moist, lustful lip-partings and sultry, lens-focused stares; Black’s is a camera that can draw the heat out of anyone and anything set in front of his Nikon.
Confident to the last – his Instagram profile is headed up with the quote ‘’If you gots money, I gots talent – Imma muthafuckin gun for hire’ – Black’s work echoes this cocky swagger. His models stare directly down the barrel of his camera, open-faced, wide-eyed, arms, hearts and legs open. His is not the work of a timid artiste but a ballsy, trigger happy party animal who wants to be at the centre of all the action, documenting it in vivid, tangible technicolour.
