You Loved The 'Dirty' Video

January 12, 2004 9:26 PM

David LaChapelle : New York magazine calls him "the Fellini of photography". Most others just remember the wacky picture of Lil Kim literally covered in Louis Vutton, Britney's coming out party or for that slimy (in a good way!) Christina Aguilera video.
posted by owillis (12 comments total)

Many NSFW.
posted by dobbs at 9:56 PM on January 12, 2004

Some great stuff there, owillis. Thanks. I've never heard of him before but I'm a hermit, so... I'm surprised at how amazing most of it was while all the album covers were average, bordering on boring/substandard. Weird.
posted by dobbs at 10:01 PM on January 12, 2004

You know, I'm really more of a fan of Fellini's neorealist films. I find Nights of Cabiria especially touching. It's unfortunate that Fellini is more remembered for his surreal images than his humanism.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:07 PM on January 12, 2004

Well, when I become famous, now I know where I'll turn to get some airbrushed naked pictures of myself.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:17 PM on January 12, 2004

I like this - thanks owillis.
posted by plep at 12:07 AM on January 13, 2004

LaChapelle is just taking Helmut Newton to the next level. Go learn from the master of erotic fashion photography, not the disciple.

(Yet another post to accentuate the decline of fashion photography.)
posted by gen at 2:01 AM on January 13, 2004

He's the guy that made Christina wear a large red rubber baboon ass, right?
posted by gdav at 2:31 AM on January 13, 2004

I wouldn't classify LaChapelle as a fashion photographer. His works tend to be celebrity portraits, done in the most cheeky, over-the-top way possible -- but they generally play on the established personae of the celebrities involved. Even when his subjects aren't well-known, they still come off as strong personalities.

Newton, on the other hand, takes relatively unknown models and projects his vision of blankly erotic Amazonian beauty onto them -- with the result that all models look like "Newton girls" in his photos. (Even if they appear completely different in other people's photos.)

I prefer LaChapelle.
posted by lisa g at 2:40 AM on January 13, 2004

Wasn't Fellini the Fellini of photography?
posted by xmutex at 8:46 AM on January 13, 2004

That "Decline" slideshow is excellent, gen!
posted by Songdog at 9:32 AM on January 13, 2004

I am not sure he can be forgiven for this, but otherwise it was kind of amazing to learn that the same guy was responsible for so many of our pop culture's images.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:00 PM on January 13, 2004

The Mac in store short film (on the same site as the Christina stuff) is fantastic. Very, very odd indeed, but fantastic nonetheless.
posted by ciderwoman at 5:50 PM on January 13, 2004