Cloning Radiohead for Spin Magazine

Photo by James Dimmock

This is an out-take from a conceptual shoot I did for SPIN Magazine to coincide with the release of Kid-A, Radiohead’s fourth studio album. I pitched the idea of creating a clone lab, DNA-altered KID-A’s if you will. Yes, I was still in my post-production-obsessed phase. My first idea was to shoot the band in morgue drawers, pulled out as if they were on ice after being cloned. Weirdly I was told that the guys didn't feel comfortable spending the day doing this. Why these world famous musicians did not want to suffer for MY art I will never know. Oh well…on to Plan B. My pitch shifted to creating a sterile room environment in the studio within which I would shoot multiple versions of the band members. The frames here were part of the ‘self cloning’ idea I had. Each band member took a marker pen and a piece of card from me, I asked them to list all their ‘perfect retouching’ notes so we could create the perfect clones of Radiohead. I’ll share more images and the final ‘perfect clones’ another time.