Photographer David LaChapelle
and the beauty of nature
LaChapelle produces visually appealing images, unique in their narrative and evocative content. Explores symbolic settings to tell a story in which earth and humanity come together.
If we review history there are many examples of characters who tell us over and over again that we must learn from our mistakes and thus avoid repeating them.
And without a doubt one of them would be the mistake of losing our only habitat, the mistake of continuing to lose species that are in danger of extinction, and that as a species we have exterminated.
As one of the most influential people in pop culture, he decided to stop at the top of his career to pursue introspection. If we review his career as an artist we can see numerous examples of his struggle to expand our consciousness. Metaphysical themes have always been part of LaChapelle’s oeuvre since the beginning of his career, criticizing consumer societies, a reference of his work.
David LaChapelle celebrates the Earth and the connection between humanity and nature and the idea that we all have the ability to defend the environment.
In his latest series, David LaChapelle projects high-gloss kitsch and saturated hues to build a mythical paradise of subversive images that show what the world could be like. A world that: “does not face extinction, with an ocean that is not filled with plastic, with clean air and people who get along without waging war and who live in harmony with Mother Earth “.
It is a fantasy. That’s not the reality. “Noting the rise of overly warm tropical waters and rapidly disappearing frogs and lizards“, LaChapelle feels that “we are on the precipice of apocalyptic things; something terrifying is coming, an interruption. “
LaChapelle’s style is hyper-saturated, theatrical, surreal, and a combination of art history and contemporary pop culture. His works explore contemporary vanity, vice, the transience of earthly possessions, and the fragility of humanity.
The human being in his evolution has achieved exceptional things, we have extended our domain to the air, sea, and space, and now we seek to continue our expansion, virtually to other worlds, on other planets. Although the main ideal for the survival of the human species is “to expand our borders”, we cannot pursue that end forgetting that here, on earth, -for now-, is our only place to live. We have developed our civilization, expanded our domain, but we are still at the mercy of nature. If we don’t understand that our only way to survive as a species is to take care of our world and everything in it, we will keep repeating the same mistakes. We are looking for ways to survive on other planets, perhaps because in the future millions of years from now our departure will be inevitable. But the earth, for now, is our home, and if we want to inhabit it until the course of the universe allows us, we must take care of it.
