Le Chapelle photographer. David LaChapelle - brilliant surrealist

Who is the star in star photography? Inimitable David LaChapelle, once called Fellini in photography, LaChapelle works for the most prestigious international publishing houses and exhibits both in commercial galleries and in leading public museums and exhibition halls around the world. He filmed such people as Madonna, Eminem, Louis Armstrong, Pamela Anderson, Uma Thurman, Elizabeth Taylor, David Beckham, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hillary Clinton, Muhammad Ali, Britney Spears and many others.

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David Lachapelle considered one of the ten most famous photographers in the world. He is often called "Salvador Dali of the third millennium"! Hollywood stars and politicians, top models and show business sharks line up for him. He creates fantastic, sometimes unreal images, without doing anything supernatural.

Breakfast of Champions, 2001

Burning Piano, 2003 (Alicia Keys)

IItalian Vogue Checkered Room

They say it works wonders. He is able to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, the vulgar into the beautiful, the boring into the funny, and the stupid into the original and original. Hollywood stars and politicians, top models and show business sharks line up for him. He creates fantastic, sometimes unreal images, without doing anything supernatural. He just takes pictures. His name is David LaChapelle.

Anna Kournikova

Blow-up Doll, 2000 (Lil "Kim)

David LaChapelle was born in Connecticut in 1969. Before moving to New York, he studied at the School of Fine Arts in North Carolina. Arriving in this city, David entered both the Arts Student League (League of Art Students) and the School of Visual Arts (School of Visual Arts). The legendary Andy Warhol gave him his first job: it was shooting for Interview magazine. Today LaChapelle is one of the most prestigious and talented photographers on the planet. The American Photo Association named him one of the Top 10 Significant People in Photography, and the number of his awards continues to grow every year
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In her works, LaChapelle creates images filled with freedom, slightly strange, sometimes funny, but always majestic and unique. It is a great honor and fortune to work with him: his photographs can be seen on the pages of Vogue, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, i-D, Vibe, Interview, The Face, British GQ and dozens of other fashion publications.

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LaChapelle loves to be original, this approach to work is his business card, which is why it is so valued in the world of fashion and advertising. David LaChapelle became the author advertising campaigns global brands - Estee Lauder, Volvo, Levi`s, Camel, L'Oreal, Iceberg, MTV, Ecko, Diesel Jeans, Sirius, Ford, Sky Vodka. Often he creates covers for CDs - of course, for the most famous stars, among them - Whitney Houston (Whitney Houston), Elton John (Elton John), Madonna (Madonna), as well as Macy Gray (Macy Gray), Moby, No Doubt and many others.

Bon Appetite, 1999 (Naomi Campbell)

Houston, We Have a Problem, 1999 (Naomi Campbell)

The most striking and significant photo collections of LaChapelle appear at the end of the last century. In 1999, the maestro presents to the world one of the most luxurious collections of color photographs called Hotel LaChapelle: it intertwines all the gloss, chic and extravagance of the world of stars. Thanks to these works, which act like a healing balm, the viewer overestimates the surrounding reality. The collection is a continuation of the photographer's earlier work - LaChapelle Land (1996). Then the most striking celebrities of the era appeared in front of the LaChapelle camera in a rather extravagant perspective: Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio (Leonardo DeCaprio), Pamela Anderson (Pamela Anderson), Uma Thurman (Uma Thurman), Marilyn Manson (Marilyn Manson), Alexander McQueen ( Alexander McQueen, Mark Wahlberg, Drew Barrymore, Elton John…

Rolling Stone (John Mayer)

Gisele (Diary of a Housewife)

No prestigious exhibition or photo gallery is complete without LaChapelle's work. In the USA, these are Staley-Wise and Toni Shafrazi galleries, in addition, the photographer exhibits triumphantly in Austria, Germany, Italy and England.

LaChapelle is known not only as a photographer, but also as the author of many videos. That is why Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera were added to the list of his "star heroes". His "Natural Blues" video for Moby, which featured Christina Ricci as an angel, was one of the biggest music industry videos of 2000 and won the MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Video of the Year. ".
Christina's Dressing Room, 2003 (Christina Aguilera)

And this was only the third video clip of LaChapelle! The photographer received similar awards for this video from the MTV Video Awards and VH-1 / Vogue Fashion Awards. And now David LaChapelle is trying himself in another role - a showmaker. He became the author of the concept and design of the enchanting show "The Red Piano' for Elton John" in Las Vegas.

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Perhaps, to the layman, LaChapelle's work will seem far from reality. However, the deeper you dive into his work, the more you feel that the new reality created by LaChapelle is not a fiction, but the multifaceted world of a talented person with a unique vision...

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He told i-D everything

David LaChapelle is one of the largest and most significant figures contemporary photography. He was often criticized for being overly commercial and offensively grotesque in his work, but that never stopped LaChapelle from being unattainably cool.

David's first high-profile work was shooting with Andy Warhol for Interview magazine in the 1980s. After that, everyone started talking about LaChapelle. It is difficult to name a celebrity that he did not shoot. Photographer of memorable vivid portraits of David Bowie, Christina Aguilera, Pamela Anderson, Courtney Love, Whitney Houston, Eminem, Naomi Campbell, Elton John, Angelina Jolie, Moby and many, many others.

This year, for the first time, nearly 100 works by David LaChapelle will be exhibited in one space - at the Australian Photo Biennale at the Ballarat Gallery. The exhibition will include works from more than 30 years of photography career. David specifically flew in from his Hawaiian home to better understand Australia and its context. Now LaChapelle spends most of his time on his farm on the island of Maui.

i-D magazine talked to the photographer and found out how he lives now and what he thinks, and we chose the most interesting from this.

"As a child, I always thought that I would become a farmer if I didn’t come out as a photographer. In my youth, I spent a lot of time in the woods behind my parents' house. I think it's the same with Hawaii, it's a great place to retire and think about everything in silence " says David.

Recently, LaChapelle carefully approaches the choice of filming:

"The portraits that I've taken over the past couple of years have come about through a special contact with the subjects. Speaking of Miley Cyrus, I feel a connection with her music, I really like The Backyard Sessions. Photographing Paris Jackson was also something special, because I once photographed her father."

Miley Cyrus

Paris Jackson

LaChapelle generally has a special relationship with the world around him. Now he lives as a hermit and tries to spend the minimum amount of time on the Internet.

"I don't use social networks. I don't want my pictures to be viewed on phone screens. The main challenge for everyone involved in art is to learn to step back. Peace and silence are very important to me, the only way I can concentrate on my photos. It's not so easy to do when almost all of our lives are connected with phones and other devices," says David.

Self-portrait in the house, 2013

In the spring of 2017, David LaChapelle exhibited some of his work in Venice. The photographer himself says that Italy is very important to him. The images and ideas of the Renaissance largely influenced his work.

"Italy inspires me a lot, I was seriously influenced by the masters of the Renaissance. Watching their work in European museums is an amazing experience. I spent a lot of time reading the news to keep abreast of what is happening in the world and the places where I was . And to keep the inner balance, I read the classics and biographies - literature that I really love, "- shares the photographer.

This fall, Taschen will release two books featuring LaChapelle's work, Lost and Found and Good News. These will be anthologies with previously unpublished photographs of the photographer. David LaChapelle enjoys them no less than the exhibition in Australia, and continues to live in peace and tranquility on a paradise Hawaiian island.

David LaChapelle is the most provocative and creative photographer of our time, a legendary figure in the world of glamor, advertising and the fashion industry. He loves to break established stereotypes in photography, creating unique and original images that always evoke a storm of emotions and vivid impressions. A queue of Hollywood stars, models and politicians line up for him at a photo shoot, and his stunning pictures adorn the pages of the most fashion magazines. His own style is the creation of surreal, sometimes completely unrealistic photographs that attract the attention of the viewer. The work of David LaChapelle is often compared with the paintings of Salvador Dali, thanks to his incredible talent to turn the ordinary into a unique, fantastic fairy tale.

American photographer and clipmaker David LaChapelle was born in a provincial Connecticut in 1969. Thanks to his mother's favorite hobby, who was engaged in photography, from childhood he learned to look at the world through the camera lens. Already in childhood, David realized that he wanted to be a photographer. So he graduated from the School of Fine Arts in North Carolina and then moved to New York. There, David LaChapelle entered both the League of Art Students and the School of Visual Arts. Thus, photography and art became an integral part of his life. The beginning of a real creative career and a turning point in the fate of David LaChapelle was the acquaintance, when he was a waiter in the famous 54 club, with the legendary American pop star Andy Warhol. It was from him that the young, talented photographer received his first order - shooting for Interview magazine. This was followed by orders from such authoritative publications as Vogue, Playboy, GQ, Arena, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. In the same period, the birth of LaChapelle's own, amazing style took place with original works on the verge of photography and surrealism.

Thanks to his peculiar, surreal photographs, which evoke a wide variety of emotions in the audience, David LaChapelle quickly gained popularity in the world of show business, fashion and advertising. He began to develop advertising companies for such worldwide famous brands like Estee Lauder, Volvo, Levi's, Camel, L'Oreal, Iceberg, MTV, Ecko, Diesel Jeans, Sirius, Ford and Sky Vodka. World-famous stars participate in his photo sessions - Christina Aguilera, Uma Thurman, Naomi Campbell, Jennifer Lopez, Pamela Anderson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Britney Spears. He also creates covers for famous musicians and singers - Moby, No Doubt, Elton John, Madonna, Whitney Houston and many others. In addition, David LaChapelle has gained popularity as a creative director and music video director. In particular, the video clip “Natural Blues” created by him in 2000 for the Moby group with the participation of Christina Ricci received the prestigious MTV Europe Music Awards as “Best Video of the Year”.

Among the most famous and significant photographs of LaChapelle is a collection of colored luxurious photographs called Hotel LaChapelle, which tells about the chic and extravagance of modern show business. Also, David LaChapelle created a special series of photographs as part of the "Declare Yourself" project to draw the attention of young people to the 2008 presidential election in America. His work is currently exhibited at the prestigious Staley-Wise and Toni Shafrazi galleries in the US, as well as in Germany, Austria, France, England and Italy.

What is the secret of David LaChapelle's success? Of course, in the signature style of creating photographs that are distinguished by their bright expressiveness, provocativeness and emotionality. Critics define LaChapelle's style as "reportage surrealism," that is, voluminous, fantastical, sometimes amusing images that capture the author's fantasies. His main creative principle - originality and provocation in everything - has earned him popularity in the world of fashion and advertising, because viewers directly associate positive feelings inspired by his free, provocative and at the same time light images with certain brands. Correlating oneself with the bright characters of LaChapelle's photographic works, each person dreams of becoming as successful and happy, which is the key to the commercial success of a talented photographer. David LaChapelle's imagination allows him to create completely unique photographs that sometimes seem provocative and too provocative, almost unreal and fantastic. Thus, the photographer embodies his own unique world in photography, in which everyone wants to be.

David LaChapelle's photographs are his own vision of the world, an uncompromising and eccentric reflection of reality. Thanks to his amazing talent for creating original and striking images, he has become a cult figure in modern world glamour, show business and advertising. Not a single significant exhibition and not a single fashion publication can do without his bright and fabulous pictures. David LaChapelle's work is always distinguished by its amazing, unique signature, but you can never predict what his next photo will turn out to be.

In preparing the article, materials from

December 10, 2013, 03:15

Speaking of David LaChapelle...

In a post about, I could not help but mention the modern fashion photographer David LaChapelle, who at one time opened Amanda to the fashion world, making her his muse.

Naturally, the muse of such an eccentric photographer should be no less provocative and scandalous - and LaChapelle. Amanda's story resembles the story of Cinderella, but only if LaChapelle wrote her story. At the age of 20, after running away from her tyrant husband, Amanada moved to New York, where for some time she made a living as a prostitute. In one of the dirty Manhattan clubs, she was found by the "fairy godmother" LaChapelle.

p.s. Since each of my posts is actively cut by the site administration, or even deleted for a copious amount of pop breasts and gay propaganda, I will try to be as decent as possible here. Which is very difficult.

But first things first.

The photographer was born in Connecticut in 1969.

My mother worked as a nurse, and I often went with her to a nursing home. The old people loved children very much and were happy when I came to them. There was a very old woman there, who in her youth was a famous pianist, but as the years passed, everyone forgot about her. She showed me pictures of her youth, she was so beautiful! you can live wonderful life when you're young and handsome and having a lot of fun. But in 60 years, who the hell knows where we'll end up? Perhaps we will be forgotten and written off.

Before moving to New York, he studied at the School of Fine Arts in North Carolina. After moving to NY, David entered the Arts Student League and the School of Visual Arts at the same time.

He spent his free time in nightclubs and at fashionable parties, where he was noticed by Andy Warhol after some time. It was he who gave David a job - the first professional pictures of LaChapelle appeared in Interview magazine, whose editor-in-chief was Andy Warhol. Before working at Interview, David worked part-time, in his own words, as a prostitute.

I am not ashamed of the fact that in my youth I was engaged in prostitution. I really needed a way to make money fast. I think it's kind of a rite of passage for a lot of gay guys. But I don't want kids to read this and think it's cool because I did it.

Starting to work with Andy, David became his own in a fashionable crowd and soon other magazines began to invite him to shoot. Its main feature is kitsch and glamour. But unlike Terry Richardson, David has luxury and money. In her works, LaChapelle creates images filled with freedom, slightly strange, sometimes funny, but always majestic and unique.

The most striking and significant photo collections of LaChapelle appear at the end of the last century. In 1999, the maestro presents to the world one of the most luxurious collections of color photographs called Hotel LaChapelle: it intertwines all the gloss, chic and extravagance of the world of stars. The collection is a continuation of the photographer's earlier work - LaChapelle Land (1996).

LaChapelle is known not only as a photographer, but also as the author of many videos. That is why Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse were added to the list of his "star heroes". His "Natural Blues" video for Moby, which featured Christina Ricci as an angel, was one of the biggest music videos of 2000 and won the MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Video of the Year. Although it was only 3 music videos for him. Among his famous directorial works are such clips as Christina Aguilera's Dirtty, I "m with you Avril Lavigne, It" s my life No Doubt, Tears Dry on Their Own Amy Winehouse and the best, in my opinion, Britney Spears clip Everytime.

Last year there was a lawsuit - David sued Rihanna for whistling the idea of ​​your video from one of David's photo shoots. The court ordered Rihanna to pay a fine and never do it again.

David hasn't been filming as often lately as he did in the early 2000s. Last it notable work, - Christmas card of the Kardashian family. This is all David. Filming the rich and dubiously famous, dressing them in kitsch, making their luxury ridiculous and ridiculous. At one time he worked with Olga Rodionova. I can't imagine how much she had to pay him.

People try to be cynical because they are afraid of being naive. But being naive does not mean not having your own ideas. Somehow everyone thinks it's fucking cool to be a cynic.

David LaChapelle is one of the ten most famous photographers of our time, according to the American Photo Association, and the number of his awards continues to increase every year. He is often called "Salvador Dali of the third millennium", and critics define his style as "reportage surrealism".
David are fantastic worlds that are very different from the usual reality and embody the main creative principle of the great photographer: provocation in everything.

David was born in 1969 in Connecticut. Since childhood, he already knew exactly what he would do. His mother was fond of photography and, of course, had a great influence on her son's passions: she taught David to see what cannot be seen otherwise than through.

My philosophy is to love more than not to love. So I try to love almost everything.

After graduating from the North Carolina School of Fine Arts, he moved to New York City and enrolled in two places at the same time: the School of Visual Arts and the Art Students League.
The great King Andy Warhol provided the first job for the future master of photography, giving LaChapelle the opportunity to take part in the shooting for Interview magazine.
Today is the day of filming at the great David LaChapelle costs 185 thousand dollars.
With graceful ease, he makes the wayward Naomi Campbell pour milk, Britney Spears sells hot dogs, and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen weeds the beds. His photographs flaunt on the pages of such eminent publications as Playboy, Rolling Stone, Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ.

Among other things, LaChapelle is also known as the author of many videos.
So, for example, he shot the video "Natural Blues" for the Moby group, in which Nina Ricci was in the role of an angel. By the way, the video became one of the most striking events in the music industry of the 2000s, for which it received the MTV Europe Music Awards as "Best Video of the Year".

The world is much easier to live in if you try to love it. There is so much criticism in the world, everyone tries to criticize, but, in my opinion, it is much easier to just live and enjoy.