Photographer David LaChapelle invites us into his LA studio and reminisces about his early days in New York when he used to work at Studio 54, hang out at the Mudd Club, and generally be a fabulous young man.

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My real love is doing the still image, building the sets, creating these scenes, or creating these tableaus and stories and narrative, where you're reaching people through an image.

I love the power that's within that still image.

This is where we do all of our woodworking and set building.

And above us is prop storage, and then this is 1 of our sikes in here.

I have the lights so that the color balance lights because photography everything's about the color and saturation.

So everybody take a seat and watch a movie.

At 15 years old I dropped out of school and came to New York.

I was already going to New York around 14 years old, taking the train.

It was a 45 minute train ride or an hour train ride to Grand Central.

I started going to discos and nightclubs in Connecticut and then we started going to New York.

And so it was just a great time to come of age and I had all these really cool friends in New York, you know, and they weren't that much older than me.

I mean, they were 18, 19, you know, 20, but I felt, you know, pretty mature at that time, even though I wasn't.

And I moved in with this girl, Vanessa, on First Avenue and First Street.

She worked at CBGB's, which was a nightclub, and I got a job at Studio 54.

So she'd always tease me, cause I was like going to the, you know, what she thought was like a fruity, like it was like an uptown club.

She was like downtown, but I would go to both, you know, I'd go to Mud Club and CBGB's, and then there'd be, you know, Studio 54, cause I liked the glamor, and I also liked, you know, hanging out downtown where I lived in East Village.

Then I was 17 and my dad came, I always kept in touch with

And my dad's like, you really, he finally just was like, you gotta just try to

And we'd heard about this art school in North Carolina called North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem.

I never graduated because I didn't have enough credits, but halfway through our senior year, we had a photography intensive, like for the second half of the year.

And I just, I knew right then, you know, at that school, that photography was it.

And I never really finished a drawing or painting, like really finished a drawing, painting, I still sketch and sketch ideas and stuff, but that really, it was it for me.

It was just a great place to meet other young artists, whether they were dancers or visual artists or musicians, just like-minded kids.

And from that school I came back to New York when I was 18 and just picked up where I left off.

My friend had a loft on 23rd at 303 Park Avenue South and she was working in the fashion business at the time and she was a couple years older than me.

We were best friends and I said, Lisa, we should do a show in your loft.

I was using her darkroom, she had a darkroom in there.

So we did a show in her loft space of my photographs.

And that was in 84 and I called it, first show was

The first photos I did were black and white.

I printed it all myself, and I was doing a lot of experimenting with bleaching on prints.

There was a lot of interest in the metaphysical, playing with magic, or the unphotographable, the idea of the soul, or life after death, were pretty heavy on my mind.

And nude, figurative, natural light, black and white, heavily Renaissance inspired.

I started working for Interview with the second show at Lisa's Gallery in 84.

We did a show 3 months later called Angels, Saints, and Martyrs.

And that show got, I kept bringing my pictures back to the offices of Interview because Andy said, shows your pictures.

87, I started, I was showing in galleries and working at interview, which, you know, just getting published was really exciting.

And I shot, you know, the first picture the Beastie Boys ever published was mine.

And just getting these great assignments, you

know, like meeting all these cool people and just getting your picture printed in

And we wound up taking the last portrait of Andy, like formal portrait of him before he died, just a couple weeks before he died.

We didn't know, of course, that he was going to die.

I was just in love with photography and wanting to give something to the world rather than, I don't know, this idea of like, I never thought

I was going to make money or notoriety or things like that never really crossed my mind, honestly.

Like, it was more about What can I give rather than what am I going

Especially when my friends started dying of AIDS and things like that, I wanted to do pictures that were uplifting.

I never wanted to create more confusion or darkness or ugly things.

And that's a relative term because what's ugly to me may not be ugly to you or what's beautiful to me may not be beautiful to you but I had to just be really truthful with myself or honest and take pictures that I thought were beautiful.

Later, you know, we started seeing more celebrities and stuff like that, but it was, you know, unplanned journey.

People always say, why don't you show your sets or show, you know, at galleries, my

I keep it to photography just to give myself parameters.

I was just really glad to be involved because I love nightlife and dancing.

is just an opportunity to create something that will wind up in photographs anyway, wind up as a sort of memorable snapshot of mine, if not a real photograph, probably both.

I like short-form film, like commercials and videos and stuff.

we did was Florence and the Machine, Spectrum, a few weeks ago.

When we first came here, we were cold and we were clear With no colors on our skin, we were light and we burst in This is another shooting area.

so light could come through the floor and lights would go

So having a nice studio like this in LA, we can keep a lot of the flats and reuse them over and over, repaint them.

Instead of having to build them and chuck them out.

So we use all these elements and reconfigure them into different, depending on what shoots we're doing.

This is where we shot the dance sequence of Florence.

But we use this, I mean I use it for everything.

So these, these, these Sykes, there's 3 of them in

Because it doesn't have any square walls, it kind of goes into this big void and looks much bigger than it is.

To me, that's the magic of art, when you connect, when you hear a song, ah, that's what I'm feeling, I felt I've been there, that, you know, or just the

notes and tone of a music, the melody that haunts you, that stays with you.

I strive for my photographs to have that same impact

and the same feelings when you walk into a

museum exhibition or something you'd see that and I mean that's what


Speaker 0: My real love is doing the still image, building the sets, creating these scenes, or creating these tableaus and stories and narrative, where you're reaching people through an image. That's my love. I love the power that's within that still image.

Speaker 1: This is where we do all of our woodworking and set building. And above us is prop storage, and then this is 1 of our sikes in here. This is my workroom, Editing room. I like to

Speaker 0: be back here. It's quiet and

Speaker 2: I have the lights so that the color balance lights because photography everything's about the color and saturation.

Speaker 0: This is where we watch movies and stuff.

Speaker 1: So everybody take a seat and watch a movie.

Speaker 0: I grew up in Connecticut. At 15 years old I dropped out of school and came to New York. I was already going to New York around 14 years old, taking the train. It was a 45 minute train ride or an hour train ride to Grand Central. Got to start going to nightclubs.

I started going to discos and nightclubs in Connecticut and then we started going to New York. It really was big, big time for dancing. And so it was just a great time to come of age and I had all these really cool friends in New York, you know, and they weren't that much older than me. I mean, they were 18, 19, you know, 20, but I felt, you know, pretty mature at that time, even though I wasn't. And I moved in with this girl, Vanessa, on First Avenue and First Street.

She worked at CBGB's, which was a nightclub, and I got a job at Studio 54. So she'd always tease me, cause I was like going to the, you know, what she thought was like a fruity, like it was like an uptown club. She was like downtown, but I would go to both, you know, I'd go to Mud Club and CBGB's, and then there'd be, you know, Studio 54, cause I liked the glamor, and I also liked, you know, hanging out downtown where I lived in East Village. Then I was 17 and my dad came, I always kept in touch with

Speaker 3: my parents, They were great.

Speaker 0: And my dad's like, you really, he finally just was like, you gotta just try to

Speaker 3: finish high school. Like, you can't just be sitting in

Speaker 0: New York another year. And we'd heard about this art school in North Carolina called North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. And they accepted me. They let me in as a senior. I never graduated because I didn't have enough credits, but halfway through our senior year, we had a photography intensive, like for the second half of the year.

And I just, I knew right then, you know, at that school, that photography was it. And I never really finished a drawing or painting, like really finished a drawing, painting, I still sketch and sketch ideas and stuff, but that really, it was it for me. It was just a great place to meet other young artists, whether they were dancers or visual artists or musicians, just like-minded kids. It was really incredible. And from that school I came back to New York when I was 18 and just picked up where I left off.

Speaker 3: My friend had a loft on 23rd at 303 Park Avenue South and she was working in the fashion business at the time and she was a couple years older than me. We were best friends and I said, Lisa, we should do a show in your loft. I was using her darkroom, she had a darkroom in there.

Speaker 0: So we did a show in her loft space of my photographs. And that was in 84 and I called it, first show was

Speaker 2: good news for Modern Man. The first photos I did were black and white. I printed it all myself, and I was doing a lot of experimenting with bleaching on prints. There was a lot of interest in the metaphysical, playing with magic, or the unphotographable, the idea of the soul, or life after death, were pretty heavy on my mind. And nude, figurative, natural light, black and white, heavily Renaissance inspired.

I started working for Interview with the second show at Lisa's Gallery in 84. We did a show 3 months later called Angels, Saints, and Martyrs. And that show got, I kept bringing my pictures back to the offices of Interview because Andy said, shows your pictures. So from 84 to

Speaker 0: 87, I started, I was showing in galleries and working at interview, which, you know, just getting published was really exciting. And I shot, you know, the first picture the Beastie Boys ever published was mine. And just getting these great assignments, you

Speaker 3: know, like meeting all these cool people and just getting your picture printed in

Speaker 2: a, It was an oversized magazine.

Speaker 3: And we wound up taking the last portrait of Andy, like formal portrait of him before he died, just a couple weeks before he died. We didn't know, of course, that he was going to die. Nobody thought that. He was so young.

Speaker 0: I was just in love with photography and wanting to give something to the world rather than, I don't know, this idea of like, I never thought

Speaker 3: I was going to make money or notoriety or things like that never really crossed my mind, honestly. Like, it was more about What can I give rather than what am I going

Speaker 0: to get out of it or something? Especially when my friends started dying of AIDS and things like that, I wanted to do pictures that were uplifting. I never wanted to create more confusion or darkness or ugly things. And that's a relative term because what's ugly to me may not be ugly to you or what's beautiful to me may not be beautiful to you but I had to just be really truthful with myself or honest and take pictures that I thought were beautiful. Later, you know, we started seeing more celebrities and stuff like that, but it was, you know, unplanned journey.

People always say, why don't you show your sets or show, you know, at galleries, my

Speaker 3: head would explode if I

Speaker 2: started doing installations. I keep it to photography just to give myself parameters. Shmurdov was doing this Midnight Circus.

Speaker 0: I was just really glad to be involved because I love nightlife and dancing. I think it's a great release. But a project like This, in my mind,

Speaker 2: is just an opportunity to create something that will wind up in photographs anyway, wind up as a sort of memorable snapshot of mine, if not a real photograph, probably both.

Speaker 0: So I just think of it as a set piece for

Speaker 2: a photograph. I like short-form film, like commercials and videos and stuff. But music videos aren't really... The last 1

Speaker 0: we did was Florence and the Machine, Spectrum, a few weeks ago. And that was a lot of fun. She's super nice. When we first came here, we were cold and we were clear With no colors on our skin, we were light and we burst in This is another shooting area. This is

Speaker 1: where 1 of the Florence sets was. We had it rigged

Speaker 0: so light could come through the floor and lights would go

Speaker 3: back here and chandelier and so on.

Speaker 0: I like to recycle sets and

Speaker 1: use them over and over, repaint them.

Speaker 0: I don't like to... I try to be

Speaker 2: as economical as possible with saving

Speaker 0: resources. So having a nice studio like this in LA, we can keep a lot of the flats and reuse them over and over, repaint them. Instead of having to build them and chuck them out. So we use all these elements and reconfigure them into different, depending on what shoots we're doing.

Speaker 1: This is where we shot the dance sequence of Florence. But we use this, I mean I use it for everything. So these, these, these Sykes, there's 3 of them in

Speaker 0: the studio that we can use.

Speaker 1: Because it doesn't have any square walls, it kind of goes into this big void and looks much bigger than it is.

Speaker 2: To me, that's the magic of art, when you connect, when you hear a song, ah, that's what I'm feeling, I felt I've been there, that, you know, or just the

Speaker 0: notes and tone of a music, the melody that haunts you, that stays with you. I strive for my photographs to have that same impact

Speaker 2: and the same feelings when you walk into a

Speaker 3: gallery or

Speaker 0: museum exhibition or something you'd see that and I mean that's what

Speaker 3: I strive for, that's sort of the goal.

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VICE Meets: David LaChapelle