Photographer 4 - Alexander Khoklov

Alexander Khoklov

Khoklov is a Russian award winning photographer who is known worldwide for his eye-tricking portraits based on the mix of face-art and different textures. His most popular series of photographs were his 'Weird Beauty' and '2D or not 2D', which were made with the collaboration with Valeriya Kutsan, the makeup artist. His work uses a mixture of face art, photography and post production efforts to create his extremely interesting photographs.

This is a photograph out of his 2D or not 2D series. I like this photograph as it is demonstrating a similar sense of design as that of Picasso's cubism portraits. This photograph is showing an array of colours which although do not compliment each other they do not harshly clash on the models face. With a mixture of skilled make-up application and post-production editing, he has been able to create this design on the models face. I would like to try and experiment with editing a similar style of work using photoshop as i would not be skilled enough to paint it onto a model. 

This is a photograph which has been taken in the style of pop-art which is a style that has become popular through Andy Warhol's art. I like this photograph as it is unique and shows the concept of beauty as it would if this woman was in a comic book etc. This is a different style to several other beauty photographers and it is interesting as he has chosen to show the concept of beauty in his own original style which can be seen throughout his work. I would like to try and re-create a similar style of image in my own work as it is a different way of portraying beauty. 

This photograph is showing a model who has half her face painted white and on the other half of her face, it has been painted black. But it has been painted in such a way that the black half looks like a side view, this creates an illusion as the model is actually facing forward. This was a photograph taken from his weird beauty series. It is representing beauty as it is showing that there are several different faces to beauty, and that which ever angle is seemed beautiful is decided by the viewer.

This photograph is showing a model who has got paint running down their face, this is representing a watercolour effect. The paints poured on this model are not dark heavy colours which reinforces the idea of water coloured images. I like this image as it is showing beauty in a more symbolic way, the paint can represent the makeup worn to try and fit the standards set in todays society, melting of her face to show the volume of makeup worn. 

In summary i like Khoklov's work as he takes a unique spin on the concept of beauty photography, he turns his wacky ideas and uses them to portray beauty in a way which will capture the audiences attention. 

I have tried to take my own spin on the pop-art style similar to his photographs, i hand painted the pop art look onto my face and used a timer to capture the images. I then progressed these photographs by editing them in photoshop to touch up all of the rough edges on the paint and to make the hair yellower.