"Heaven And Hell"
(A Review Of The Book By David Lachapelle)
David Lachapelle was born March 11th 1963 and is an American photographer. He is well known for his vivid and quite often contrasting photographs of celebrities, beautiful people and the 'not so beautiful'. He has created several books although 'heaven and hell' is the one that I purchased myself and found utterly breath taking.
The front cover is obviously the most iconic photograph from the entire book. It's the one that will stand out and stay in your mind, it's also one that the idea behind is fairly clear. It's a mix of reality versus old testament, new age takes on the past. It's about no matter how far we come, there is still suffering, still loss, still all the things inside of us that make us human, no matter what we do, there will always be a heaven and always be a hell. It's a definition of human emotion.
The book itself features 320 pages of highly erotic, disturbing but all the same beautifully perfect images that really hit the spot with me and whether anyone else enjoys them or not, nobody can say that they don't catch your eye and as long as you've caught a glimpse of one of his photographs, it's hard to turn away from it because lets face it, it's just instinct to lose yourself in them.
The first opening pages are quite tame and definitely have the literal element of 'heaven and hell' about them. Although as you turn the pages they get more extreme and more 'in to it'. Sex, love, lust, food, obesity and death. The themes can be read a thousand ways, but whatever way you read it there is always something interesting, something more to think about, something you can question and this is something I love so much about his work.
Lachapelle has tried to create something completely out of the ordinary, as per usual, and he has succeeded incredibly. Using faces of current icons, religious characters and strong minded people to create an intense and wonderful photo book. He has tried playing with emotions, innocence and lust contrasting against one an other is a big favourite as well as the classic 'what is beauty' or 'Beauty Vs. Ugly'.
Why so 'in your face'? Some people might ask. It's because that is life, there's no subtle way to go about living. It's there and it's happening, it's a fast track and everything and anything is being thrown from all angles, that's why nothing is toned down. Nothing is done half heartedly because it all represents the vibrance of every day living, from the most morbid of things to the beautiful, it's all shown through the 'life' in the photographs on the pages.
The celebrities Lachapelle has incorporated into his work are well chosen, some less known by others but for a great deal of people how he's used each individual in his work is inspired, it's perfect and very well thought through. He's shown true character in the layout of each image.
I feel that the reason for his choosing clebrities as well as lesser known models is because it brings an element of familiarity into the work and this is extremely important as it helps to make the work more personal and identifiable to the viewer, to people who don't necessarily know, or care what the work is about, it allows a button to be triggered inside, it allows you to automatically want to make assumptions and start thinking more about what this work might mean.
