Excerpt from the critical essay, “David Lachapelle Transformer of Photography”

by Chih-Hung Lin:

David LaChapelle is a photographer with great story-telling skills. His images possess tremendous power, and the many peculiar happening in the contemporary world serve as his creative muses. His motto has been to look with creative outlook beyond superficial appearances. In the 80’s, he started as one of the many young artistic hopefuls dwelling in New York’s East Village. At the end of the 80’s, he joined Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine, and kicked off his multifaceted career. In the 90’s, he began making music videos, and in 2005, he made a documentary film, Rize, about Los Angeles ‘ street hip-hop culture. After creating black and whites images for six years, LaChapelle made the conscious decision to turn to color photography, and the objective was to offer the public another possibility to escape from their monotonous everyday life and take people into vividly magical world. This turning point went on to from an amazing series of chain reactions. LaChapelle said that when he decided to venture into the world of color photography, he was also transformed into a new person, with new perspectives on life and ways of working. It was a total transformation for him.