You might venture to say that Elvis Di Fazio is the Australian-born answer to Terry Richardson; his tongue-in-cheek raw documentary style becoming a trademark that’s backed by a fine art background. His biography uses the phrase “kitsch erotica”, and you quickly get the sense that Di Fazio does everything with as much humour as boldness. This piece of Di Fazio’s work has more of the erotica and less of the kitsch, though the styling does play to the latter; raw sexual energy on the beach is rounded out by a closing shot of Avril Alexander, wet-haired and wrapped in a beach towel, peering at the camera over her lover’s shoulder. It may be a shoot about beach sex, but Di Fazio and his two Australian models do it a kind of justice.
It’s an ongoing subject of debate as to what constitutes high fashion photography, but the blurry line is an interesting one. You can enjoy – or critique – Di Fazio’s signature style of kitsch erotica as you see fit by viewing the whole shoot above.
