Ever fancied yourself dressed in a leotard posing in a butcher’s shop with your husband dressed as a pig? Or perhaps you have a thing for action movies and would love to be able to jump off a Ninja motorbike in The Matrix style in a cat mask and have someone document this impossible feat? Or maybe you see yourself as a bit of a Mafia boss surrounded by a dark and dingy setting with a penguin in the corner?
You may find these questions off the wall, completely senseless even but this is the main inspiration behind a new company called Alex is Dead. Two quirky individuals with a strong taste for the strange and disturbing are giving a graphic spin to photographic creativity by allowing their subjects to act out their wildest fantasies, documenting them in a Tarantinoesque style. The result is gripping and brilliant and the good news is that you too could be one of these subjects.
Alex Sheldon and Alex Ioannou, both 30 years old, are distant cousins, drawn together by an unquenchable creative thirst for “something different”. Ioannou, has studied photography and worked for various publications in Athens, while Sheldon has simply viewed photography as an inspirational hobby. “We’ve known each other since we were babies,” says Ioannou, taking off his white-framed sunglasses and settling in to the conversation. “We both had a passion for photography and that’s what eventually brought us together.”
Ioannou used his professional photographic experienced eye while Sheldon took on the fidgety task of editing the pictures. They were both a source of inspiration. “Our first photoshoot was done at the salt lake in Larnaca,” says Sheldon. “We decided to spice things up and give it a Bond theme. In the end we loved the results so much we thought ‘Why not work together?’”
Combining their skills and resourcefulness however, was only one of the ways these two were going to get noticed. The opportunity they could give the public to expose their alter egos no matter how weird and twisted – in fact the more so the better – would ultimately set them apart from anything else. “We’re always scouting locations and we work in the same way a photoshoot operates but on a minimum budget,” says Ioannou.
“The expensive props you see in the pictures (he’s talking about a Ferrari 360 featured in the project Boys &Their Toys) are owned by friends who wanted good, professional pictures taken of them. That’s what they got.”
The basic idea behind Alex is Dead, a name the boys found “catchy”, is absolute freedom in expression. “We love the idea of random images, different and alternative to what you normally see,” they explain. “It’s not always easy but it’s definitely fun.”
To understand the duo’s work, you have to see the pictures. Tons of imagination has clearly gone into every single shot but also hard work on the editing side of things. For instance, the Red Riding Hood scenario, aptly named Red Riding Reloaded, has an almost fake studio feel to it with an old abandoned house as the backdrop to a girl in red peep toe heels and scarf holding hands with a guy dressed in a nightgown, boots and wolf mask. The colours have been enhanced to recreate that gory 80s B-movie feel, many of Quentin Tarantino’s movies have taken inspiration from. “He is a huge inspiration to us,” Sheldon says. “But it is our own interpretation of the story.” Here, Little Red Riding Hood is holding a gleaming butcher’s knife, playfully interacting with the wolf on a swing set. How much of a twist can one put on the bedtime story?
Contact Alex is Dead by visiting their website http://shownd.com/alexisdead or e-mail the boys at [email protected] or [email protected] . You can also call them on 99-773988
