 As you well know photography has the power to bring to us in a very real and visceral way the awfulness that is going on in the world on a day-to-day basis and the last two years have been no exception. Now I don't know about you but I am sick and tired of this unrelenting barrage so I just want for a moment to try and draw the curtains on the world outside and and take a break from all of this and we do this by turning to the other great ability that photography has which is to create fantastical worlds, to create ideas and places where we can just simply go without having to worry about the the day-to-dayness of our existence. How's it? How's it? David Litterpell is the one that we really want to turn to here. He is a fantastic pop art photographer whose worlds exist really just to create beauty, to create escapism and and a little bit of fun as well. What better antidote to what's been going on at the moment than all of his fantastical photography? The first introduction that I ever had to the world of David Litterpell was this photograph of Alexander McQueen who was standing in front of a castle that was on fire you know with some sort of rebel yell to his his expression and I think the title about the image was something about Alexander McQueen burning down the castle of fashion and I think it was in practical photography or some other magazine like that that was reading on the bus on the way to school one day and and it struck me that how is it that a photographer was able to create this kind of thing because up until that point my experience of photography really had been the sort of images that you would expect to see in a magazine like practical photography and you know and I was vaguely aware of some photographers like Avedon or Liebervitz or have you who at the time were not really doing certainly Liebervitz wasn't doing these elaborate setups that he's become latterly known for so the idea that McQueen could create these sets could create these these almost bubblegum pop arty images was completely new to me and it fascinated me in a way that a lot of the other contemporary photographers of the time didn't as a teenager David LaChapelle found himself in New York and actually working at studio 54 and all of that clubbing scene that was sort of prevalent at the time so it is no surprise that you can sort of see within his photography where the roots of these these worlds that he has created have sprung from they you know he is using photography as a way of just capturing sort of beauty but it's interesting when you listen to him talk about his background about his mother's own attempts at photography it shines a very different light which I think is actually quite prevalent in today's world my mom met my dad she came to me she was in America for three days and met my dad working in tobacco in Connecticut picking back up my dad was putting himself through college and she used to do these photos set up these elaborate tableaus on weekends when she had time off from work and raising us kids she would set up these tableaus that's me the baby the family and she made these little wings out of paper and this got more and more elaborate as I as we grew up and we she was creating this sort of as an immigrant coming for from war torn Eastern Europe from camps and and all this you know the horrors of war she came to America with this idea of this American dream this aspirational idea of what it should look like and sometimes she would take us in put us in knee socks and everything's like every weekend knee socks and turtlenecks and we you know we hated it but we had we did it because it was mom's thing was her aspirational idea of the of the American dream and that's not our dog and that's not I don't know what country club that is but we didn't belong to it and we didn't dress like that either but that was picture day I don't often talk about photographers being lucky because I think that's slightly unfair but with Le Chappelle's photographer he was certainly a person in the right place at the right time you know being in New York in in the late 70s early 80s he was involved in the club scene you're obviously working at the studio 54 and he was having exhibitions of his own photography you know dealing with his his inner conflict about the AIDS thing with you know in friends apartments and this brought him to the attention of Andy Warhol who was at time you know doing interview magazine and Warhol famously said to David Le Chappelle that it doesn't matter what you do just so long as you make the people look good so can you imagine what a what a hot bed of creativity that must be that's your only breathe just so long as the people look good then that's fantastic and and the outpouring of photography that Le Chappelle created from that moment forth I absolutely adore I love it has a it's got a bubble gummy kind of feel to it it's got a you know a sort of a slightly surreal edge it is completely escapist and it's extremely seductive I often feel a bit conflicted about looking at David Le Chappelle's photography because I in one hand I'm extremely drawn to the to that world that he's created that he says that he hopes lives somewhere or exists somewhere just out just out of sight somewhere around the bend you can imagine these people are actually living this life and I look at it and I go oh that would be so cool to just live in that slightly hedonistic world where there is no worry beyond beauty about enjoyment about life about you know having well fun but then I think you know actually I'm quite a boring traditionalist person look at what I'm wearing you know as I have an earring but that's that's probably the biggest sop that I have to you know so hedonism which is oh my god I've got an earring and you know but so I don't think I would necessarily want to live in these places you know in the real life but the idea the idea is what draws us in that it it teases us with a world that could be real and I think I certainly wanted to be real but ultimately we know that it isn't it is bubblegum pop art escapism and then of course is the beauty of the thing that is not trying to really create a huge message just not trying to drive home just look at this you must live your life in this kind of way it's not really having a a grander message than beyond a place for the shepell to create again I keep coming to these words back to these words beauty and and escapism but that's what that's what he wants to create so I was I was creating these images out of out of an escape and what that created and gave me the sense of doing something you know I didn't it wasn't about leaving a legacy it wasn't about oh I want to you know leave a mark behind I actually just wanted to have a purpose for having been alive I thought I was gonna die too so I didn't think I was gonna live past 24 I just had this number in my head that's how old my boyfriend was when he died I was 21 he was 24 so I got my head I'm not gonna live past 24 so I want to get some beautiful pictures out in the world before that happens so I started making these images first in black and white then in color and they're all like about these spiritual questions and ideas of heaven ideas of of immortality ideas of the soul and what does that look like cutting negatives and painting them with dies and then having gallery shows at my friend's apartment in New York City which is now a successful gallery this is pushing my friend Jeffrey you know and it's sort of like the the the sadness of that time too there was such sorrow and losing so many so many people and you couldn't even mourn them properly because you were so scared of dying yourself you know so my mom was creating out of this aspiration to create images of a of this idea of this you know American family her idea of the of America I was creating at that point out of a way to put my energy out of the fear and out of the the pain and into something I could give to the world and have to have a purpose or be alive these days I don't often ask people to share videos but in this this instance I want to make an exception because as I mentioned there are there's so much rubbish going on and I could say stronger things but I but I won't I I'm tired of of being full of just awfulness the whole time that people are just wherever you turn all you are confronted with is is is it's shocking images things that make you sad that tell you that the world is awful and and we need to counter that we need you need idea we all need to to help people remember that there is better stuff out there that we are all of us individually better than this share these images with anybody who you think would enjoy them who they might bring a little bit of light into their lives because this is what we need right now we don't need to see more and more and more and more pictures of awfulness going on we know it is going on we understand it but we need to counter this with some just some light some some brightness it won't make the the horrid better but hopefully it can make it easier for us to to to deal with now this is not to say that David Le Chappelle doesn't inject some sort of social commentary into his photography and one of the reasons actually why he ended up going and and living in Hawaii on a farm just you know cutting himself off from photography is because of what he found an uncomfortable overlap between his magazine commercial work and then real-life experiences kind of finished i did this series house at the end of the world this is the last story i did for magazines and it was about hurricanes and the destruction of climate change and this is this this is shot in in the spring and when it was on the newsstand three months later Katrina happened and people were phoning Italian vogue upset because they thought that i had like seeing the images of Katrina and done a fashion shoot about it and they thought that was exploiting a tragedy and the images were shot you know three months prior but they just happened to be on the newsstand and i knew then i had to leave the world of magazines that my pictures were not coinciding with the the needs of the magazine the editor called me from Italy David why the pictures and you look at people calling the magazine they think it's about the hurricane and i said it is about hurricanes you know i just didn't know i didn't know Katrina was gonna happen but you know i was leaving my mom's house in florida and they're putting up their the hurricane shutters and and i couldn't do anything about it i felt so helpless so i was always doing what was on my mind and letting that come out and in the images Latali David LaChapelle has created more artistic photography so he's gone back to his original his come almost full circle so he's given up on the the commercial side of things and become a photographer in the artistic sense exhibiting in galleries and and i find that a heartening thing to see because it is far easier to create grim gritty raw real images that that you can use to say look look how awful the world is and hopefully affect change that way then it is to create images that are simply about beauty now of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder and his idea of beauty may be different from yours may be different from mine but the thing is he is creating beauty he is actively seeking out ways of making a statement but in a way that isn't full of despair i really hope that all of us you and me and and everybody else who's watching can do something to bring a little bit of light and beauty back into the world in our own small ways there isn't enough of it out there just want to tell you that you know make that quiet time make that space where you're away from your friends away from everybody because we have all the answers inside of us when it comes to creative things ask yourself not what you're gonna get you know from a career in photography or a career in art direction or but what what are you gonna give and that's what i always did from when i was really young was what can i give the world that they that that would ease ease ease the pain of the world or or bring some joy or touch people in some way or bring a smile to their face or some color and and i did that i i i was always asking what i can give i never thought about being famous or being a lifestyle i wanted to take photos that were famous that were people would see i didn't want to sing in the shower you know but i wanted i really wanted to give something not not what i was going to get i talked to a lot of students and i always tell them you know what are you gonna what are you gonna give the world that that in as far as imagery goes as far as being an artist you know you can create darkness and more confusion and more things that nobody understands or you can create something that's you know enlightened and and can touch people or you can attempt to do that you know and that's and that's what i try to do and and make that quiet space so you can hear that voice which is your gps as an artist we don't have you know a guide like being a lawyer or do goodness this class and go to this college and intern at this law firm you know artists i would have never could have never planned this journey that have taken me from galleries to magazines to to to the island of hawaii unless i'd followed that voice and made that quiet time i could hear it you know so turn your stuff off turn off your devices and listen and um and let life inspire you whatever you're going through another photographer who creates equally fantastical world but from a whole different perspective is Desiree Dolrin i put up the video here go check her out thank you ever so much for being here today and i'll see you again soon