Black Porn

Hot on the heels of his acclaimed series ‘Porn Sessions’, ‘Black Porn’ is an evolution of sorts and seeks to further go down the dark alley of sexuality. While Vella describes his first offering as being “youthful and clean”, ‘Black Porn’ seeks to visit the fringes of safe sexuality. Divided into two main sections, the digital and first part of the exhibition focuses on the first traces of sexuality in the Bible and depicts the story of Adam and Eve and that of the creation of the Earth in a new, colourful light while the second part has a darker edge. While the first part is somewhat structured and was shot in the light, the second has been kept purposely raw with unplanned shooting and an openness rarely seen on film. In order to perfectly capture the concept of living in the moment, Vella only used a Polaroid camera to capture his night pictures which were taken when both he and his subjects were inebriated. The motive behind this particular factor was a simple one: Vella’s need to catch people at their most vulnerable, pure and uninhibited.

Describing the colour black as the most insistent of hues because it forces one to pay attention to it on sight and contains all the other colours, ‘Black Porn’ was also constructed in order to raise AIDS awareness with a portion of sales being donated to the continuing battle against the devastating epidemic. With an eye to destroying all the taboos surrounding sex, Vella’s ‘Black Porn’ seeks to shoot people at their most free and open through the eyes of the photographer as voyeur.