Provocateur: Photographs

LA-based photographer Tyler Shields’s work has made a big impression, whether it’s his photographs of exploding Rolls Royces, alligators clamping their jaws on Birkin bags, or starlets flying through the air in impossibly beautiful arcs. Shields frequently combines the world of Hollywood glamour with his love for the acrobatic, creating a wonderful combustion of movement, color, and subject. Provocateur brings together in a single lavish volume his most compelling work to date, including a series of retro-style glamour portraits, ethereally decadent Marie Antoinette-inspired visions, and rustic woodland scenes that serve as a backdrop for modern-day nymphs.

Unaffected by the feathers he ruffles, Shields pushes his subjects-often the young elite of Hollywood-and himself, to the limits, going well outside usual comfort zones. Shields’s daring, perceptiveness, and skill in getting his subjects to reveal themselves make these images unforgettable and truly provocative.