Photographic Inspiration: David Lachapelle

I'm gonna go ahead and make an assumption that whoever you are, you know who this man is. If you don't then I guess you should probably take some time out, look at his work, goto one of his exhibitions and become ever so slightly obsessed and jealous of his immense skill.
He makes the most fantastically coloured images and has photographed some of the biggest names in the world. His work is often incredibly sexual, homoerotic and slightly scary, he just kind of makes me want to give away my camera and never attempt photography again.
Anyway, enough mindless drivel, here are some of his images:

 

All images copyright of David Lachapelle

Automated Alice

This is a shoot that we have been planning for a while now and the date is coming up fast!
The inspiration from the shoot is a book called Automated Alice by Jeff Noon. The book is an extension of Lewis Carrols books and was written in 1996, the basic story is Alice chases her aunt's parrot through a grandfather clock and she travels forward in time from 1860 to 1998 Manchester where the world is full of half human half animal "Newmonians". She finds an Automated Alice which is a perfect copy of Alice but mechanical, (so the same model will be used for both Alices). The story of the book is that she is trying to find the parrot and stumbles across the Jigsaw murders, which are a string of murders where the murderer leaves a jigsaw piece behind. I want to pretty much re-create parts of the book. It's not the typical Alice in wonderland theme and this was something I want to avoid as it has been done to death.
I would reccomend reading Automated Alice if you are a fan of the Alice books, it's a great book.

So far we have a pretty much full cast and two fantastic MUAs called Ezme Thomas and Pop T Make Up who are going to be helping us with the make up.
All in all, this should be a great shoot, I'm just hoping that no models cancel or decide they don't want to do it!

Copyright Ezme Thomas.

Stagger Lee

"It was back in '32 when times were hard
He had a Colt .45 and a deck of cards
Stagger Lee"

I am planning a shoot around the song "Stagger Lee" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I love this song, I think it is one of The Bad Seeds best and I have wanted to do a shoot around it for a while. I have already found my soon to be dead barman, my Stagger Lee and all I need now is a floozy, a make up artist who can make four convincing bullet holes in someones head and a wild western style bar!

I want to shoot the pictures similar to how Tarantino shot Pulp Fiction, with really extreme and low angles, very dramatic and quite modern, I don't want this shoot to have a vintage look, I want it to look modern and almost clean but in a dirty western sort of way.

I just wish I could goto America to find an authentic western bar to shoot in. Another slight problem I have is finding a replica Colt 45 Peacemaker, I have found some to buy for around £38 but really, I didn't want to spend much money, except possibly on a bullet belt, which is something I have wanted to own for years anyway.

Colt 45 Peacemaker

So, I guess after reading this you should hear the song, it is lyrical genius!

Stagger Lee - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

First post.

Well, here goes another blog. I'm not gonna go into the whole introduction thing, this blog is just for my photography and things that inspire me, I guess it's a photography diary.

Here are a couple of my newest works from the last week or two:

Model: Lady Whiplash

 

  Model: Little Star Mow

And finally, a self portrait:

Words: Radiohead - Idioteque