Who is Joshua Hoffine?
Joshua Hoffine is a native Kansas photographer who through his work recreates those impossible scenarios that are only part of the collective imagination. In the majority of his photographic series he explores the nature of the fears that children have and which are characterized, mainly, by the fear of the fanciful and the unknown .
Joshua Hoffine was born in Emporia, Kansas in 1973. In 1995, he graduated from College and began taking pictures. He studied photography with commercial photographer Nick Vedros and later worked as an assistant in Hallmark Cards before embarking as a freelance .
But it was not until 2003 that Joshua Hoffine began to make his " horror photographs " and is the phrase that defined his work. His work as a terror photographer has been private and continuous for years, but he is also a photographer at weddings and he does CD covers to support his family.
The Horror Photographs of Joshua Hoffine went online in 2008 to make his own website with his work, which explores the nature of childhood fears. Since then, his work has been published in magazines, anthologies and outlets around the world which has generated thousands of fans of his work.
Self proclaimed as " the horror photographer ", Joshua Hoffine loves to cause reactions in people who see his work so in the last decade, he has been dedicated to frightening his fans with macabre, surrealistic and terrifying series. Recreating childish fears and nightmares (monsters under the bed, claws that catch you, giant monsters, etc.) and explaining on his website that it is based on the "psychology of fear" and as the fear of such things as darkness, " Loses its intensity" as we grow.
The most interesting thing is that Hoffine uses his own daughters for his shots, as well as friends and acquaintances who are characterized in an altruistic way. On this, he says that his daughters are proud to be a part of his work and have never been scared of it, in fact says that they take it as a game and know how to make scary face to scare the audience.
Hoffine has several series such as " Phobia ", " Pickman's Model " or " After Dark Sweet " where he subjugates us to basements, murders, dead mothers, clowns and monsters looking for restlessness and to remove our fears of childhood. And it is these fears that inspire his art along with the horror films and stories that he discovers, achieving with his art to recreate our nightmares.
What distinguishes Joshua Hoffine from other photographers?
Well, among other things, Hoffine, uses almost no editing resources in his images. It is based on digitization, which serves to give more contrast and sharpness to his works, as he refuses to use Photoshop or more retouching as he is considered a hyperrealistic photographer who gives much more importance to makeup and scenery than to touch-ups.
Hoffine assembles a set for each photograph and recreates all the scenes that he imagines. Puts clothes and makeup as if it were about a small film, achieving with their special effects to give life to their visions to avoid the use of any subsequent retouching. Everything planned in such a meticulous way that he can transmit what he desires, stir up fears and fear of the unknown.
His photographs have drawn attention not only to the theme and use of effects, but to refer to a childish language that revives fears kept deep in our minds like the fearsome monster under the bed or the witch who wants to eat us. Each image manages to capture the uncertainty and the horror in the faces of the protagonists and the terrible of the monsters that are part of our imagination and that Hoffine brings to life.
All my image sources are from Pinterest and Google.
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