This sequence of images is based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft called PICKMAN’S MODEL.  This story was originally published in 1927 in Weird Tales.  I was attracted to this project because of the character of Pickman – who in Lovecraft’s mythology is a brilliant but marginalized artist notorious for his horrifying artwork.  Due to the graphic and disturbing nature of his work,  he is shunned by his fellow artists.

All of this struck me as eerily familiar.

With limited time and budget, I chose to focus on the moment in the story when Pickman brings Thurber, the narrator, into his underground studio to show him his Masterpiece – his greatest and worst work – the one that can never be shown in public.

Instead of creating one heroic image, I wanted to create a sequence of images as if they were shots from a scene in an old Hammer movie.

The character of Thurber was played by Damian Blake, a talented performer and professional Charlie Chaplin impersonator.  He was able to provide his own vintage wardrobe and grew a handlebar moustache just for this project.  Here you can see Damian standing in for a lighting test while still wearing his coat.  The basement location was very cold.

The character of Pickman was played by my friend and regular actor Bob Barber.

My friend and regular assistant Demien Vela, as well as my lovely bride Jen Cogar (who played the lead in LADY BATHORY) acted as crew.  Here you can see Demien running the fog machine and moving the sheet into position using fishing line.

Pickman’s artwork was provided by fellow Horror Photographer Chad Michael Ward.  To see more examples of his work (which ranges from Horror to Erotica) check out his website at DigitalApocalypse.com

Thank you to Phil Kim at Famous Monsters for inviting me to shoot this project.  See you next time!

I began this project by acquiring the materials necessary to build a life-size Robot. I consulted with a local Steam Punk artist named Cliff Robinson, who helped oversee construction. Cliff taught me how to paint plastic objects so that they looked like metal. The body of the Robot was made from a baby bicycle seat and a diaper genie I found at a thrift store.

I spent weeks rummaging through thrift stores and flea markets looking for potential body parts. I used pieces from Tonka trucks and golf carts, grape juice bottles, tripods, plastic plumbing elements, flashlights, toy lightsabers, and knitting needles. Rivets were made by spray painting ‘googly eyes’ and then glueing them onto the body.

The head was made from an air humidifier, radio antennaes, and different Star Wars ships pieced together. We placed a small LED flashlight inside the eye so that it would glow. It was important to me that my Robot have one red glowing eye like HAL in 2001.

I recruited my friend and frequent model Bob Barber to play the part of the Robot’s willing victim. Bob has played the villain in several of my photographs, including DEVIL, BABYSITTER, and most recently KEYHOLE. But this is the first time he’s been cast to play the victim in one of my images.

We glued latex appliances onto Bob’s arms to create the oversized junky track marks.

I used eye shadow to accentuate Bob’s gaunt features and bulging veins. I used black clown make-up on his shirt so that we would appear to be covered in engine oil.

We attached metal rods to the Robot’s arms so that my assistants Matt Tady and Demian Vela could puppet them into position.

We used Fullers Earth to create the atmosphere of steam. Demian and I made a rig with an air compressor to blast it into the air. The grit and texture of the Fullers Earth looked more like steam than the smooth fog I usually use.

After placing Bob into position, my only directions to him were to look as if he were in a state of religious ecstasy. I removed the puppet rods using Photoshop.

I also used Photoshop to replace the yellow plastic syringes with actual glass containers of fluid – in this case Barq’s rootbeer. I did this separately so that I would be able to backlight the fluid and highlight the air bubbles inside.

After photographing Bob with the main Robot body, we photographed the Robot legs. Here you can see Demian positioning a leg with heavy guage fishing line. The leg was made from a weedeater, a Star Wars lightsaber, part of a tripod, an old fishtank purifier, and bicycle sprockets. By this point I had run out of money, so I made only one leg and photographed it in four different positions, adjusting the lights as we went along. I added the legs to the original photograph in Photoshop, completing the insect-like Robot design I was aiming for.

See you next time!

What if you look through your keyhole and discover an axe murderer right on the other side of your door?

And he catches you watching?

For me, this image is about the mechanics of Horror. I wanted to create an image that would cast you – the viewer – as a character in the scene. I centered on the idea of having the camera look through a keyhole, believing that this device would establish an implicit P.O.V. perspective for the viewer. This image is about voyeurism, about seeing something that you shouldn’t, and worse – being caught in the act. In this image you – the viewer – are the incumbent victim.

This photograph was shot on location in the home of my friends Jon and Ron McGee, who were kind enough to allow me to splash their walls with fake blood, and leave indelible pink stains on their unfinished floors.

I made an oversized keyhole for the camera to look through out of foamcore, copper paint, and sculpey.

My friend Bob Barber played the part of the axe murderer. I had most recently used Bob as the escaped lunatic in my photograph BABYSITTER. My friend Patricia Castillo, who helped me with the make-up on BABYSITTER, returned to do Bob’s make-up once again. I had her shave Bob’s head so that he would look more like a business man, or maybe a banker, gone berserk. I gave him sock garters.

My stalwart friends Matt Tady and Demian Vela returned to work as my assistants. Here you can see our keyhole rig and some of our lighting. I placed a large softbox on the floor as my main light source. I placed a small hot light in front of the softbox to add a brighter, harsher light to Bob’s face. I used two clip-on desk lamps to light the rim of the keyhole prop.

I also placed small hot lights in both of the rooms behind Bob, and used a fog machine to add a little bit of atmosphere.

Matt Tady’s girlfriend Danielle played the part of the victim’s body, a thankless job. Luckily, there was plenty of wine on hand. She stretched out on the floor and then scrunched down inside the nightgown to make room for a severed neck stump that I stuffed inside with her. I then sprayed her down with fake blood. From the camera’s position, the illusion worked.

My sister Becky played the part of the victim’s head. Creating a replica head of Becky was beyond my resources, so I started out with an inexpensive prop head with a missing eye. I placed the prop head into position on my set, dressed it with fake blood, and shot it alongside my actors.

Knowing the face on the prop head was not nearly believable enough, I then photographed Becky as well. After matching the original shot in terms of lens, distance, and lighting – I splashed her with fake blood and had her act out different faces of death. I combined the two shots in Photoshop for the final image. The bottom part of the face, the shadow on the floor, the missing eye, the neck stump – those elements are from the prop head on set. The remaining eye and bloodied face are my sister.

See you next time!

My friend Bob Barber, who played the title role in DEVIL, returned to play the part of the homicidal lunatic escaped from a mental hospital.

My friend Patricia Castillo came in to apply Bob’s make-up. I told her that I wanted a big gnarly lobotomy scar on the side of his head, held shut with metal staples.

She exaggerated the lines in Bob’s face, and whitened his skin until he was wraithlike and ashen, like a person who hadn’t seen sunlight in years.

She also added bruising and lacerations to his wrists for the broken handcuffs.

My friend Demian Vela was on hand once again to help me with the lighting.

My regular cohort Matt Tady helped me as well.

This photograph marks the debut of my eldest daughter Arinna, who plays the part of the babysitter. Arinna is 13 years old, and an amazing girl. She is charming, precocious, exceedingly bright, and a natural leader.

Arinna was a frequent model during my early years as a photographer. When I began making Horror photographs, it was her younger and more vulnerable sister Shiva that I used as my main model. As Shiva grew older, the role went to their younger sister Chloe. Arinna has always helped me behind the scenes, but this is the first time she has played a victim in one of my photographs.

The baby in the photograph is my niece Thea, who was also the baby in my photograph SNAKE.

The concept of the escaped lunatic appears in at least three of my favorite Horror films: BLACK XMAS, HALLOWEEN, and WHEN A STRANGER CALLS. There is something very vulnerable about the teenage babysitter – no longer a child, but not yet an adult – attempting to shoulder grown-up responsibilities.

Ultimately though, this photograph focuses on just one thing – what if something awful was waiting for you right around the corner?

See you next time!

Lady Elizabeth Bathory was an actual person. She was a Hungarian countess in the 16th century, and one of the most prolific serial killers in history. Apocryphally, she bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth and beauty.

The story of Lady Bathory serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of vanity, and comments on the current preoccupation with youth and beauty in our contemporary society – from the mainstreaming of plastic surgery and botox injections, to body waxing and even piercing and tattoos.

I wanted to create a contemporary version of the Lady Bathory legend. In my photograph, the bloodletting is depicted as a kind of spa treatment, with Lady Bathory wearing a green mud mask and cucumbers on her eyes.

This photograph was staged at The Foundation, an architectural salvage business in the West Bottoms of Kansas City. Patrick, the owner, donated an antique bathtub to use, and made this image possible by allowing us to build our large set in his space.

My beautiful girlfriend Strychnine Jen played the part of Lady Bathory. She was also an active member of my production crew, and spearheaded the enormous task of painting and scraping the dried blood grout lines on 2,420 pieces of white tile.

My friends and regular crew members Matt Tady and Demian Vela helped erect the walls of my set.

Here you can see Jen relaxing in the bathtub as I position the overhead light.

The more difficult role of Lady Bathory’s virginal victim was played by my friend Andee Hindery. She is an aerial fabric acrobat, and the only friend I have that could physically handle being hogtied and suspended from the ceiling. Andee’s roommate Rachel, also an acrobat (and a dominatrix), came in to teach us the complicated knots necessary to suspend Andee.

Here you can see Matt and Demian trying to figure out how to hoist Andee into position.

Once Andee was in position, we quickly brought in Jen and began shooting.

Although we had made a rig out of surgical tubing and an air compressor to pump blood through Andee’s slashed throat (a latex appliance), it failed to deliver the geyser of blood I wanted, so I decided to shoot the blood separately.

Here you can see Jen hard at work mixing gallons and gallons of fake blood. We got the recipe from a special feature on the movie SLITHER: dark Karo syrup, Hershey’s chocolate, and red food coloring.

I taped a mark on the tile wall to show where Andee’s neck had been, and then had Demian and Matt pour blood in countless different ways, trying to get the perfect blood pour.

Because the blood was photographed on my actual set, the lighting and the focus were a perfect match, so it was relatively easy to combine the frames in Photoshop. Although I admit, cutting it out took me a long, long time.

See you next time!

This month my work is being featured in Rue Morgue, arguably the greatest Horror magazine in the world. The article about my work is titled THE GIANT SPIDER, THE CANDYMAKER, AND THE WOLF WITH HANDS, and was written by the editor-in-chief herself, Jovanka Vuckovic.

This photograph was shot in my studio. I constructed a set with a floor that was raised three feet off of the ground. My friend Jason Coale, who works as a professional scenic designer, acted as supervisor. My friends Damien Vela and Matt Tady helped with all of the carpentry. I met Damien through the Kansas City Horror Club. Matt is a fine art photographer specializing in Burlesque portraits. He shoots on a vintage Super 8 movie camera, and then prints on resin plates that he creates himself. Demian and Matt also worked as production assistants during the actual shoot. My friend Kevin Sisemore worked as my first assistant during the shoot, and helped steer the enormous Hasselblad camera that was loaned to us by Digital Labrador.

I drew out the shape of the crack on the carpet with a Sharpie pen, and then cut out the crack in the floor with a jigsaw, carpet and all. The furniture was borrowed from my sister Sarah.

To line the inside of the crack, we cut out separate cardboard rectangles and covered them with shiny red fabric. We nailed and taped the rectangles together into a position that would match the jagged contours of the crack.

Most of the toys came from my mother’s basement, and belonged to me and my sisters as kids. Others were borrowed from my daughters. The angel drawing taped to the wall was made by my daughter Sade.

My friend Bob Barber played the Devil.

I wanted my Devil to be fire-engine red, with horns, long pointy ears, and an arrowhead tail. As archetypal as possible. I wanted him to look like a child’s drawing come to life.  I bought prosthetic appliances for the horns, ears, and the bony nubs on his spine. My friend Jason Coale applied the make-up for me. He used an air sprayer to paint Bob red.

Most people don’t realize this, but the Devil wears blue jeans.

I was counting on the fog machine to hide the fact that Bob’s make-up job did not extend below his waist.

I wrapped Bob’s waist in the same shiny red fabric that we used to line the crack of Hell. The tail was made from a rubber snake. I removed the head and spray painted the body red. I made the pointed tip of the tail out of cardboard, gaff tape, latex, and paint. We used fishing line to puppet the tail into position. I later erased the fishing line in Photoshop.

When Bob and I were done with our dress rehearsal, we brought in my daughter Chloe. It took hours to finish Bob’s makeup, style the set, and set up all of the lights. Chloe had spent the evening in full costume, eating chocolate chip cookies, watching cartoons, and playing with Tiffany, Kevin Sisemore’s wife. The crew kept referring to Tiffany as ‘the child whisperer’.

In this photograph you can see me giving Chloe her directions while standing in the crack of the floor.

Kevin Sisemore took this photograph of Chloe. She is smiling in reaction to everyone in the room, Devil included, breaking out into spontaneous applause over her performance.

See you next time!

Your work is not well known here in Brazil. Can you tell us a little about your career, when you became interested in photography, if you are only interested in fine art or if you also shoot other kinds of photography, like journalism or advertising.

I started making my first photographs shortly after graduating from college. My focus has always been fine art photography, but I have shot many different kinds of work over the years.

What are your influences?

Horror films, fairy tales, Jungian psychology, the works of Joseph Campbell.

When did you become interested in Horror?

Horror became the principal subject in my work in 2003.

On your website you talk about Jung and the power of cliche, and about the reinvention of archetypes. Obviously this goes through the stories you create in your photographs. How do you choose the stories you want to reinvent through your photographs?

I am interested in creating photographs that employ archetypal imagery to act out universal fears. These are the subjects I look for. The more common or cliched the fear, the more I want to make an image of it. We can all relate to the idea of a monster hiding under the bed, but we’ve never seen a photograph of it before. Through photography, I want to explore archetypes that we are already familiar with. I want to drag our psychological monsters out into the light of day and take pictures of them.

Your work deals with childhood imagination. Is this kind of terror more powerful than the one we have as adults? Does playing with childhood nightmares make adults even more frightened?

We can all remember being children, when our fears were still very primal. My photographs remind adults of things they used to be frightened of, but have forgotten about. Recover the memory, and you recover the fear.

The experience of ‘fright’ is intrinsically related to the level of commitment the viewer has to fearing for the protagonist under threat. This feeling is a responsive emotion which demonstrates a desire to protect someone from harm. If the viewer empathizes with the victim then it is likely that the fright will be mutually experienced. These are the mechanics of Horror.

Your work deals with universal themes, while at the same time reflecting some kind of North American style. Would it be true to say that America has some peculiar form of Horror locked in the back of the head of the country?

While Horror does explore fundamental and universal questions about human existence, it also deals with the anxieties of a given culture at a specific time. Beginning in the 1960′s, with movies like PSYCHO and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, I think American Horror has been predominantly concerned with the fear of other people and the threat of social collapse.

I try to style my sets so that they reflect a sense of innocence and nostalgia. Many of the elements in my sets, such as wallpaper patterns and furniture, come from the 1940′s and 1950′s, which for the U.S. represents a period of relative innocence. It helps me to create a familiar psychological backdrop for the primal drama unfolding.

It is impossible to see your work and not think about literature. Do you have any literary background?

Yes. I did not go to art school. I have a degree in English Literature.

Working with disturbing imagery is always a challenge. Where is the thin line between good taste and provocation?

Horror is underpinned by the desire to experience feelings which relate to taboo agendas and the limits of gratification. One of the major functions of Horror is to define cultural taboos. The experience of Horror resides in this confrontation with what is taboo. For me, what is or isn’t in good taste is never a consideration.

Going a little further, where does Joshua Hoffine’s work go in the future? More Horror?

For the foreseeable future, yes, more Horror.