bohemea: Milla Jovovich by David LaChapelle, 1995

I found this image right around the time in my life I was getting into photography. I still love Milla, and though I think David LaChapelle is about is childish as the collage in the background, it was a really great time for creative commercial photography - before photoshop was a verb and magazines were irrelevant - when art directors and photographers had the power and the budget to create some really interesting and sexy images that inspired a generation of kids (thats me… I think?) to create visually engaging ways to share information and communicate ideas.

Now you’re lucky if you can see a plasticine celebrity du jour behind the cacophonous wall of cover lines - all focus-group tested and screaming for your attention - but for a while, magazines like Detour, RayGun, Interview, even WIRED, and photographers like Herb Ritts, Matthew Rolston, Ellen Von Unwerth, Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh, et al. were producing more than the current printed press junkets that are as disposable as the tired fashion they’re pushing… the photographers were artists and the magazines were still magazines, but at least they were fun and a lot more interesting.