He has photographed many celebrities, including Janet Jackson, Madonna, Tupac Shakur, Shakira, Eminem, Paris Hilton, David Beckham, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hillary Clinton, Muhammed Ali, Britney Spears, Elton John and many more.
He is influenced by Andy Warhol, and he admires his work. He is addicted to the rush of meeting a deadline, and he tries his best to acomplish it. He is interest in popular culture, the world and people in the world.
By looking at his photographs, it shows you he is a contemporary photographer. His pictures are surreal and sexy. He naturally crosses the art/fashion genre.
David makes a statement, saying "Have fun with your photos and subjects", as he describes his photos as fun. He tries to make his photographs different from others, so they are striking images.
He was introduced to photography by his mother, as she used photography as an escape, making pictures look better than they actually are.
He is a good team worker, and works with lots of people in a team, helping him set up for his shoots, and helping him with ideas. They help him contruct the images, and the backdrops0.
His approach changed after 8/10 years, as he started off doing wedding photography, however he wanted to make a change and do things how he wanted and be creative. He describes himself as a conceptual photographer.
Money is not a limit according to David La Chapelle. Sometimes he will have to use extra of his own money to get the right shoots. He has worked on shoots over a period of 2 days for big sets. He has colaborated with different artists and painters for his backdrops of sets.
David plays music on his sets, so he can make the stars feel comfortable infront of the lens. He does research on each artist to get inspiration and ideas for his shoots, and then the celebrity/artist would choose their favourite idea. He says "Theast part is taking the pictures, putting it all together and pulling the shoot off is the hardest part/making it work."
He likes to make the people in the pictures look beautiful and sexy, and he says that hius images arent dark or harming the persons career. People are larger than life in his photos, you never really know what you are going to get, there is no repetition within his photos. He said he gets very nervous before the shoots, but he can relax afterwards.
David LaChapelle wasn't born into a rich environment, he did have lots of money to start with. He came from a small town where he didn't feel like he fitted in. He felt that there was no other option but to go to New York, where he could make his dreams come true and make a difference.
He went to art school, where he met Andy Warhol. He got a photography job by him, and his aim was to make everyone look good in these photos. He worked for magazines such as 'Time Vogue' and 'Vanity Affair'. He said the difference between doing an editiorial shoot and a celebrity shoot is the time limit. Celebrities are in a rush, whereas art/editorial shoots are more experimetal and there is more time.
The colours in his photos are bright, rich, bold, full on and over saturated. He is trying to achieve perfection when he takes a photograph and when he edits the photo.
He tries not to over re-touch the photos, so that his pictures are more honest, and aren't fake.
"Photography is like a painting, it can be anything I want it to be" He quotes. He didn't want to photo the horrors of the world, he wanted to capture the beauty.
Some of his photographs look like the theme is a nightmare or dream.
He never thought that his images would be in a gallery, he was only aiming for them to be shown in magazines. He says "Purpose of art is to make people think". His goal for life is to photograph people that make up the world and people from popular culture.
Here are some of his striking, colourful images, they are really in-your-face photographs, and they are fun to look at.
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