Joshua Hoffine - Horror Photography

Process
I stage my photo shoots like small movies, with sets, costumes, elaborate props, fog machines, and special effects make-up. I use hotlights rather than strobes because they give me better fog effects as well as a warming color shift. My images are not photoshop collages. I use photoshop to finesse details and to adjust color and contrast for printing. I use friends and family members as actors and crew. Everyone works for free. We do it for fun.

Statement
I love old Disney cartoons. I like the hyper-realism of animation, and the overblown production values of big Hollywood movies. I want my images to be pretty so that you’ll look at them longer. I am interested in the science of fairy tales. I want to reinvent archetypes. I embrace the Jungian power of a cliche. I think of my photographs as pieces of candy.

I believe that the horror story is ultimately concerned with the imminence and randomness of death, and the implication that there is no certainty to existence. The experience of horror resides in this confrontation with uncertainty. Horror tells us that our belief in security is delusional, and that the monsters are all around us.