David Lachapelle Essay

427 Words2 Pages
David LaChapelle

David LaChapelle photographic style I would say I more of a “hyper-real and slyly subversive” and as “kitsch pop surrealism.” LaChapelle is a contemporary photographer who also has work created as an American commercial photographer, fine-art photographer, music video director, film director, and artist. Andy Warhol discovered LaChapelle in 1980 and offered David his first job shooting for interview magazine, which was the epicenter of pop culture at that time.
David LaChapelle speaks to our culture by creating music videos that influences our youth to dress and be a certain way. When LaChapelle takes pictures of celebrities, it is sending us a message even if we don’t know it or not. Sometimes in his work LaChapelle can produce a lot of controversy and provocative photos. He is trying to speak to our culture by saying not every photo you see is pornographic and to get people to not associate nakedness with sin. Instead David celebrates the freedom of nakedness in order to liberate the representation of the body, mainly the female body.
When it comes to his work the underlying meaning of hi artwork of photography would be that he has a unique hyper-realistic aesthetic with profound social messages. When it comes to his techniques, LaChapelle is more about art design than the photographic technique. When researching David on what type of camera he used I found out that he was using a Pentax for studio work, and when he was shooting film he was using a Pentax 645n or a nii. I believe understanding David’s technique will give you further understanding of his work. Because he has a lot of pictures that people may think to be very controversy, and in order to see these photos in a different light you have you have to understand his technique. When reflecting on the history of photography I noticed that just lie today there has always been
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