Afro Surrealism

Photograph the room exactly as it is, then let one thing be impossible.

Fidelity first. The world must be completely believable, and then exactly one rule is broken, and nobody in the frame reacts. The break should carry a point, not a mood. Avoid gold frames and palm fronds as shorthand; avoid the horror register.

Director's note

Leave with every frame on this list.

Shot list

1. 01Frontal portrait of a Black woman in a velvet chair under tungsten light, her face and shoulders a hard-edged collage of magazine skin and machine parts
2. 02Wide shot of an ordinary living room, television on, family on the sofa, and a door in the wall opening onto a field of wheat
3. 03Medium shot of a man in a full-body suit of buttons and raffia standing in a laundromat, nobody reacting
4. 04Close crop of gold leaf, lamé and wax print fabric under a single warm lamp, a hand resting on them
5. 05Wide street scene in documentary daylight where one house is upside down

Practical tungsten lamps, television glow and window light, in complete photographic fidelity. The impossible element is lit exactly like everything else. No haze, no glow, no dream filter.

Light

Scout these before anything else.

Locations

1. 01A family living room with the television on
2. 02A laundromat, barbershop or church hall
3. 03A velvet-upholstered studio set with tropical plants
4. 04A street in documentary daylight

Real clothes with one extraordinary garment: velvet, lamé, satin, a full-body covering, or a collaged mask. Church clothes, work uniforms and house clothes are all correct.

Wardrobe