Photos

If you want reality take the bus. - David LaChapelle

People say photographs don't lie, mine do. - David LaChapelle -

Then I got this idea in my head that magazines were like a gallery and if you got your magazine page ripped out and someone stuck it on their refrigerator, then that was a museum – someone’s private museum. - David LaChapelle -

I was working in this very bombastic style. I didn’t really know about style. I didn’t think about it: I did what I was interested in, what I was attracted to, what I was drawn to. I was drawn to color, and I was drawn to humor, and I was drawn to sexuality and spontaneity. It was all really intuitive. I never really thought, “Well this is the style… - David LaChapelle

You just do what you love, and then a style happens later on. People put it together and decide it’s yours. But some days you wake up and you’re happy and some days you wake up and you’re sad, some days you wake up and you’re feeling angry about things… if you can translate that through your work, and express those feelings, that’s okay as an artist. I didn’t see any difference between being a photographer or being an artist. I didn’t make those boundaries. If someone wants to think it’s art, that’s great, but I’ll let history decide. - David LaChapelle

I wanted it to provide an escape route, I wanted to make pictures that were fantastic and took you into another world, one that was brighter. I started off with this idea. - David LaChapelle

It’s much harder to work for yourself, by yourself, than to create work for a gallery, because there are no limits and you can do anything you want. It’s always easier when you have a parameter, when you have a limit. You can work within the limit and push it and walk the line, but when you’re given absolutely no limits, it’s harder. You must really think. It’s more challenging. - David LaChapelle

My idea was that if I took a picture of somebody and years later, or whenever, they would die and if someone wanted to know who this person was, they could take one of these pictures and it would tell who the person was. - David LaChapelle