LaChapelle Research Paper

Sacha Scott

Photo

Artist Profile: David LaChapelle

The artist that I found the most interesting and the most influential for the

kind of photography that I find meaningful was the American photographer David

LaChapelle. David was born on March 11, 1963 in the town of Fairfield, Connecticut.

He excelled in art at a very young age and originally wanted to pursue a career

involving painting and drawing, but at the age of seventeen decided to switch gears

to photography. During his first years discovering the possibilities of photography,

he found taking pictures of people to be the most rewarding for him, creating

interesting scenes for his friends that he could photograph. At seventeen he moved

to New York where he introduced himself to the pop artist Andy Warhol and was

bold enough to show him his amateur photographs. Andy saw the obvious potential

in this young aspiring artist and offered him his first job. This was the starting point

to a long and successful career in photography. Throughout his career LaChapelle

has worked for Rolling Stone, Vogue, GQ, Photo, and Vanity Fair. He has also

successfully produced anthologies of his own work all cleverly named LaChapelle

Land, Hotel LaChapelle, Heaven to Hell, and Artists & Prostitutes. These books

contain his most popular images of celebrity portraits and fashion shots. LaChapelle

even created a documentary film about a Los Angeles dance craze called Rize. Now

at the age of 47, David is still producing art that all of America can access and

become inspired by.

The style of LaChapelle's photography dabbles in surrealism, advertising, fine

art, and editorials. He was greatly influenced by artists such as Warhol and Richard

Avedon, a proclaimed pioneer in fashion photography and portraiture. What

Avedon brought to the area of fashion photography was something that LaChapelle

did a tremendously good job of picking up and extending. Before Avedon, fashion

photography was very still and statue-like and Avedon changed it by adding motion

and by actually

of the photograph. David LaChapelle conducts his photo shoots in a similar way,

creating surreal and dreamlike images around the fashion and around the celebrity

that is to be the main focus. Instead of fashion shots of women standing still in their

clothes, LaChapelle shoots the women are more often than not in motion and in a

risqué scene. Avedon's inspiration is clearly shown through LaChapelle's work.

You can see the very scenes that Avedon was trying to make and times it by ten,

because of LaChapelle's utter boldness in cartoony color, in order to get a

LaChapelle image.

Although some may dismiss LaChapelle's work as simply grotesque and

pornographic, the true motives are actually very understandable- he aims to target

America's main obsessions and indulgences. These include drugs, pornography,

gluttony, beauty, and fame. His work is a bold in-your-face look at our own culture.

This includes portraits of Tupac in a bath of solid gold, Eminem with an exploding

fircracker near his crotch, and Angelina Jolie serenly posing with a majestic horse.

His creative genious is there for all to marvel at.



creating compelling scenes around the fashion that was the purpose