Just Try Not To Get Scared Looking Through Horror Photographer Joshua Hoffine’s “Keyhole”

So, you’ll noticed I “reblogged” a post a couple of days ago also from Josh Hoffine’s blog, “Making Pickman’s Masterpiece”. I was talking about some of the themes of Mr Hoffine’s work, and which ones scared me the most, and it seems I managed to overlook this one.

I do recall seeing this nightmare of an image, titled Keyhole, a couple of years ago, but I think it’s one of those things your mind sort of rejects to try to protect your emotional health, like a DVD player kicking out a damaged or unplayable disc after trying to read it for ten to fifteen seconds. Disc Cannot Be Played. I had the same reaction the first time I saw it; I just froze up. It actually is a good thing to see the breakdown of how it was made, to remind me it is JUST A FICTIONAL PHOTOGRAPH, with actors, models, special effects, and a little bit of digital manipulation. If you do a Google image search for Joshua Hoffine Keyhole and look at the image alone… you might get understand why this deconstruction of this photo is actually comforting. This remains one of the most frightening (fictional) photographs I’ve seen in the last decade. DAMN.

Well, I’m off to look for actor “Bob Barber” on the IMDB, to see what else he’s done and again remind myself he’s not really an emaciated maniacal axe-murderer. Maybe HE has a blog…

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Joshua Hoffine | Behind The Scenes

This is my new photograph titled KEYHOLE.

I wanted to create an image that would cast the viewer as a character in the scene. This image is about voyeurism, about seeing something that you shouldn’t, and worse – being caught in the act. In this image the viewer is the incumbent victim.

I made an oversized keyhole for the camera to look through out of foamcore, copper paint, and sculpey.

Bob Barber played the part of the axe murderer. Patricia Castillo, who helped me with the make-up on BABYSITTER, returned to do Bob’s make-up again. I had her shave Bob’s head so that he would look more like a business man, or maybe a banker, gone berserk. I gave him sock garters.