Otilee Lamb

Creative director and freelance fashion photographer
14/10/09

Self Portrait - Nanatastic

Otilee Lamb is a freelance fashion photographer and Creative Director for Forks Open Doors, a full process art direction and design studio based in Perth.

How did you get into design?
After attempting a double degree in Film and Drama in the late 90’s (in what feels like a former goth life), I decided pursuing a career as an awesome rock vocalist was a good idea and disappeared to London for 3 years in 2002. Rock‘n’Roll dreams crashed and burned though luckily, my renewed passion for design was ignited and I decided it was time to grow back my eyebrows and come home.

However mismatched, random and unusual existence had been up till this point, all proved to be life experience, reams of visual reference and a patchwork of various character insight that is invaluable as a designer.

Back in Perth, I studied BA Arts (Design), majoring in Creative Advertising Design at Uni, followed also by an Honours year which allowed me to specialize in image and identity design through art direction and styling for fashion photography and advertising.

You are also a photographer….
Photography was something I sort of fell into initially out of convenience to be able to execute my own ideas in terms of art direction and styling. I haven’t had much formal training in the technical aspects of photography (other then a couple of photography units in my undergraduate degree) so these aspects of my work have been largely self taught.

Design factors largely in my photography work as I see myself not so much ‘capturing’ images, but designing them. I see photography as just the medium in the process, with the majority of the work I put into creating an image happening before and after picking up the camera. View Otilee’s website here

How would you define your style?
‘Like Valentino with a hand grenade’ – is how I like to describe my work and my style. It’s a lyric from a Skid Row song I’ve sort of adopted as my tagline for myself for a while, basically highlighting the aspects of myself that influence my work in terms of my love for fashion and music.

I have an insane passion for production design and the creation of image and identity through a constructed reality. Starting out wanting to be a film director / actress / musician I have a real love for constructed identity… creating a believable virtual image/character. I also have a long time, ridiculous and undying love for glam / sleaze metal (and the image that go along with it), deathrock / early goth/punk, musical theatre, german expressionism, art nouveau and haute couture so I guess my style is also an mashing of these loves and underlying influences. I like the theatrics of it all… and think that has a lot to do with my ‘style’.

You are the creative director of Forks Open Doors, how did this came about?
As of April this year, I took the plunge into full time freelancing which was scary but I feel a necessary step in putting myself out there as a designer and prove that I’m serious about this as a career. Forks Open Doors is a combined effort between myself and partner-in-crime Illustrator Brendan Ninness – we both do the art direction and graphic design work with Brendan taking care of any illustrated aspects while I take on any photographic based executions.

What projects have you worked on so far?
Our clients so far range from local original and cover bands, upcoming fashion designers and established labels as well as exhibitions and arts events as well as other miscellaneous business’ / individuals needing something different and creative for their marketing / advertising.

We are pushing into the direction of focusing on the art direction and image making aspects as this is where we feel our strengths are and gives us an opportunity to create imagery we aren’t necessarily able to with our individual work.

What are your thoughts on the Perth Arts Scene?
There is such an amazing pool of talent in Australia in general! I have to say though that I feel that there is still an element of cultural cringe that I think is holding people back from embracing something that hasn’t already had the tick of approval from somewhere else in the world. It’s really unfortunate, we lose a lot of local talent to other states and overseas because of this.

Initiatives, like One Trick Pony / Yolanda Stapleton (Clothespeg exhibitions), Relative Magazine and the William Street collective are a just a couple of examples of some innovative and ballsy groups who are breaking the mould facilitating airtime to other art styles and mediums not falling within what is considered the current ‘trend’. I would strongly encourage more people to feel free to take risks with their style and work and not be afraid of whether or not it will be popular or accepted.

You’ve had a colouful journey so far, any future aspirations to tackle next?
I’d love to one day have Vogue tearsheets in my portfolio as well as work on some international brand advertising accounts. Also, I’d love to eventually translate my vision to film in terms of art direction / production design and styling / costume design.

At the moment I’m starting to put more emphasis on making my own garments and accessories for styling my shoots with, so feel a bit more of a pull toward this area also… It’s something that has taken a backseat so far to my other creative interests for a long time but I’m in early stages of getting the ball rolling with taking this further and hopefully one day, expand it into having a little label on the side.

Otilee can be contacted on design@otilee.com