Vice Fashion - Pen Pals

Eydie McConnell and Lewis Chaplin are two 16-year-olds who happened across each other’s photos on Flickr. As soon as one had clamped eyes on the other’s work, they immediately knew that they had to somehow start taking photos together. The only hitch was that Lewis lives in South London and Eydie lives in Long Beach, LA.

Thanks to the power of the internet and with a little cribbing from those parched old Lomography books you find festering in the unloved boxes of rural Oxfams, the pair came up with a plan that would allow them to combine what they were shooting without ever having to actually be in the same place at the same time.

Armed only with a couple of Holgas and some stamps, they began shooting, exchanging and double-exposing film. In non-photo speak, Lewis takes a picture, sends the film over to Eydie in LA, and she shoots over the top it. Simple, eh?

Eydie wears shirt by Lee and jeans by Double M; Lewis wears model’s own t-shirt

Vice: So what the hell’s going on here? I am seeing a guy lying down and another headless guy in a Neu t-shirt in front a magic-eye background thing.

Lewis Chaplin:

Ahahahahhaa, that is Eydie and me.

Eydie:

You think I look like a guy? Fuck you very much.

Whoops. Not a great start to this little dissection of your work.

Eydie:

No. I really like that backdrop, though. It’s just this huge scarf that I pinned up on the wall.

What’s your favourite Neu record, Lewis?

Lewis:

Self-titled, obviously. I am actually wearing a bowler hat in homage to my roots here but you can’t really make that out. It looks like I have a plate on my head.

Lucas wears shirt by Fred Perry

This one’s like a Terry Gilliam animation come to life. It looks like a guy with a typewriter for a head.

Lewis:

I have a massive antique sculpture of the Virgin Mary with detachable hands and they were just there hanging out on the typewriter.

What was the Virgin Mary typing?

Lewis:

I can’t remember, probably “FTW” over and over again like

The Shining

.

Eydie:

And all that is going on over my friend Lucas putting on a shirt. I think it was a dark grey Fred Perry polo. I met Lucas at a studio lighting class.

Olivia wears glasses and skirt by Beyond Retro and t-shirt by Uniqlo

Who’s this blurry girl?

Eydie:

This is Olivia. One of the girls I was supposed to use dropped out at the last minute and Olivia was friends with the guy whose apartment we were shooting in that day. I had never met her before. I shoot a lot of my friends so sometimes it is nice to shoot someone I have never encountered before. She rode her bike over and was pretty quiet and reserved the whole time.

What was your contribution to this shot, Lewis?

Lewis:

Zilch, I am non-existent in this one.

Rob wears Hat by MLB by New Era, t-shirt and jumper by Suburban Bliss

Wow, this one is a little terrifying. It’s like he’s a ghost emerging through a wall. Is that your scarf again, Eydie?

Eydie:

It is. It makes me feel like a bohemian princess. I cart it round with me everywhere.

Who is the ghost guy?

Lewis:

That is my friend, Rob. He likes pasta and Narnia. I really like the composition of this one. Sometimes they look cool because the overlaying is so different but sometimes it looks almost like it was always like that. I don’t know.

Ally wears t-shirt by Luella, skirt by Fred Perry and coat by Beyond Retro; Dan wears t-shirt by Topman; Ben wears polo shirt by 55 DSL, model’s own jeans and trainers by Converse

Holy crap, it’s the ghost of Soulja Boy!

Lewis:

Ally is wearing that on top of her head and it just came out in the middle of the shot. Ally is an actress, and an all-round nice person. I once went to a party dressed as Soulja Boy so I was pretty pleased that he appeared in this project.

Whose face is Soulja Boy hanging out on?

Eydie:

Oh, that’s Dan and Ben. They are sitting on the same blue couch that you can see me sitting on in the first shot.

Ben wears shirt by Lee, model’s own trousers and t-shirt; Dan wears t-shirt by Topman; hat by Rokit.co.uk; Josh wears t-shirt by Uniqlo, jacket by Nike

Hang on, aren’t these the same two guys?

Eydie:

I just really liked that angle. It’s like they’re hanging from the ceiling. Like they are in

The Lost Boys

. They are also good to photograph together as they always hang out together so it always looks and feels very natural.

Is the guy that is wafting in on the right wearing a pink shellsuit?

No, that is my friend Josh bathed in red colourflash. He is wearing my owl hat. I got it at the same owl sanctuary that Alan Partridge visited.

CJ wears polo shirt by Fred Perry, jeans by Double M at Selfridges; Dan wears jumper by Paul Smith Jeans and model’s own jeans; Ben wears shirt by Ben Sherman; Albert wears shirt by Penfield and jeans by Levi’s; Lucas wears polo shirt by 55 DSL

Eydie:

All my boys lined up on the balcony, just drinking and smoking.

Is this a regular occurrence?

Eyedie:

Yeah, this is pretty typical of how a lot of your time is spent if you are under 21 and live in LA. I think we were listening to Royal Rumble’s Discobelle mixtape here.

(It’s a dog, d’uh)

Hello buddy! Who’s this fella?

Eydie:

This is Lima, she lives downstairs from the apartment that we shot in. She is this amazing schizo mongrel thing that thinks it can talk.

It appears that there is a plant growing in her ribcage?

Lewis: I locked my friend inside the shed at the end of my garden and the took the picture through the window. It looks a bit like a window into Lima’s soul or something.

Paul wears model’s own sunglasses, shirt by Lee and t-shirt by Rokit.co.uk

Eydie:

This is Paul. He works in this nice clothing store we all hang out in. About an hour before this was taken he got hit by a car and broke his collar bone. He doesn’t have any insurance so he made that makeshift sling out of a t-shirt. We threw the shirt over his shoulders because he couldn’t lift his arm. There’s the scarf again as well. It’s definitely a recurring theme.

Where are you in here, Lewis?

Well, it upsets me to talk about it. I’ll explain in a minute.

Carly wears t-shirt by American Apparel and skirt by Rokit.co.uk; Lucy wears dress by Vivienne Westwood Red Label; Nikki wears dress by Topshop

Wow, this one is nuts. There are lasers coming out of her head! Lewis: That is Lucy. She is sitting on my steps looking quite serene. I don’t think that she actually realises that she has laser power. She had an amazing Vivienne Westwood dress on. Some of these shots are really trippy. They make me feel like I am on acid.

Lewis: I’ve never done acid. I’m only 16. Eydie: Weed is about as out-there as I get. Maybe these photos are like our acid, ha ha.

Laura wears t-shirt by Trapstar and leggings by Sass & Bide

More lasers! Beer mountain laser apocalypse!

Lewis:

It looks like they are all piled up on Laura’s lap, on top of those zebra tight things. Laura loved those. She wanted to take them home and wear them for ever.

Eydie:

I shot all of my stuff in one day and that was the aftermath. Pabst is probably the worst beer ever. It’s really cheap and gives you the worst hangovers. It’s like hangover mouthwash death juice.

Carly wears top by Beyond Retro; sunglasses, skirt and bracelet by Rokit.co.uk; Olivia wears t-shirt by Uniqlo and skirt by Rokit.co.uk; Lucas wears model’s own coat, shirt and sunglasses; Nikki wears dress by Topshop

Eydie:

This is in the stairwell of the apartment that we shot a lot of this stuff in. My friends Eric and Devin live there. It’s in downtown Long Beach and it’s kind of like a stop-out place.

You aren’t really in this one either Lewis. Come on, spill.

Lewis:

OK, basically, the “B” setting means that the photo is exposed for longer. Eydie shot a lot of hers on “B” so they totally swamped mine.

Carly wears polo shirt by Fred Perry, bracelets by Beyond Retro; Olivia wears t-shirt by Uniqlo, skirt by Beyond Retro; Lucy wears dress by Vivienne Westwood Red Label; Ally wears t-shirt by Luella, skirt by Fred Perry and model’s own necklaces

The two girls on the left look pretty cute together.

Eydie:

That is Carly and Olivia, they are lovers. I have no clue how they met or about their backgrounds but they have one of the best relationships. Lucky few, I guess.

Lewis:

I like how it looks like Ally and Lucy are waving

at

you here. They are making really direct eye contact, it’s like they’re saying “hi” out of the photo. The way Eydie’s side is really red and mine is all greeny-blue is also really nice. This is a good one. I wish they could all come out like this.

Niki wears cardigan and body by Uniqlo, shorts by Sass & Bide

This one looks a little like the cover of Bringing it All Back Home, with that weird ring around it.

Eydie:

That’s the vignette of the Holga. I like this one because it’s just Nikki and she’s ridiculously sweet. And hot.

You seem to mainly both shoot your friends.

Lewis:

I think that was definitely one of the main things that drew us to working together. That consistency of the kind of people we shoot. It is all basically just our mates.

Lucas wears model’s own sunglasses, cardigan by Silas, t-shirt by Topman and jeans by Firetrap; Carly wears dress by the East End Thrift Store; Olivia wears polo shirt by Fred Perry, skirt and sandals by Rokit.co.uk

Eydie:

That is in front of the pastor’s house at a church down the street right before we snuck in. He came out after we’d been inside and was asking me for my “permit to take photos”. I don’t even know if you can get those. A permit?

How did you respond?

Eydie:

He tried to take my film but we literally ran away. Like ten-year-olds who’d done something bad at school.

Olivia wears model’s own dress

So how did you actually get into the church and shoot a girl on the altar without getting nabbed?

Eydie:

Well, the gate was open. It’s always open. That’s the point of a church. God is always there for you.

But “being there” and “sprawling semi-nude all over there” aren’t exactly on a par?

Eydie:

I guess. I reckon He’d be into this shot, though.

Lewis:

I think I managed to get a bit of a Stussy hoodie in there.

Albert wears model’s own hoodie; Olivia wears dress by the East End Thrift Store; CJ wears t-shirt by Topman and jeans by Double M at Selfridges

Eydie:

This is Olivia scurrying away from the church.

The guy on the left looks like a ghost. A lot of the double-exposed images look a bit like that. Ghosts haunting each other’s photos.

Eydie:

I don’t believe in ghosts.

Lewis:

My main problem with ghosts: why are there no caveman ghosts? Did ghosts only get invented by the Tudors? But I guess that double-exposure does give some of the images a pretty strange feel. If they didn’t we wouldn’t bother.

Lucy wears dress by Vivienne Westwood Red Label

This one looks like a scene from the Red Room in Twin Peaks.

Lewis:

That is Lucy blowing bubbles in my dining room. It looks a little like she is blowing her nose, though.

Eydie:

That red effect comes from the colour flash. I think that this whole thing wouldn’t have been even thinkable without the Holgas. So many weird things just happen in that little box.

Like overexposing your stuff over Lewis’s?

Eydie:

Hahaha, yeah exactly.

Dan wears shirt by Lee; model’s own jeans

What’s he up to there? That looks like a bong to me.

Eydie:

It is. He is actually making it here. I think he is making it out of a beaker thing.

Do you guys smoke a lot of weed? These photos all look as though they’d be best viewed under a fug of smoke.

Eydie:

It’s a habit that most people here tend to share, yeah.

Josh wears hat by New Era, jacket by Nike, t-shirt by Uniqlo and shorts by Carhartt at Slam City Skates; Ally wears t-shirt by Luella and skirt by Fred Perry; Lucy wears dress by Vivienne Westwood Red Label; Rory wears t-shirt by Slam City Skates, hoodie by Stussy and jeans by Uniqlo

Wow, this one makes it look as though the piano-playing guy is in the middle of a Coldplay show flanked by a bank of angelic, starving orphans that Chris Martin has personally saved.

Eydie:

This is just in the lounge at Eric and Devin’s place. It’s Albert playing the Korg. No one knew what he was playing because he had the headphones on. He looked happy, though.

Lewis:

The background is all of my friends in front of my curtains. The curtains are made out of ostrich feathers. I don’t know why.

CJ wears model’s own trainers and shirt; Josh wears shorts by Carhartt at Slam City Skates, t-shirt by Uniqlo, jacket by Nike and watch by Swatch

Yikes, this one is really skewed. It’s like kaleidoscope vision.

Lewis:

Josh is doing a handstand. He sucked so badly at handstands that we had to hold his legs. The shot makes it looks as though fire is coming out of his head.

Why are your guys all naked, Eydie?

Eydie:

They just have their shirts off. It was a super-hot day and they were just sitting there looking all sweaty.

Dan wears t-shirt by Paul Smith Jeans, dress by Rokit.co.uk, model’s own shirt; Carly wears jeans by Double M at Selfridges and model’s own shirt; Olly wears t-shirt by Topman and cardigan by Silas; Nikki wears shirt by Lee and model’s own jeans; CJ wears shorts by Dickies and model’s own t-shirt; Leon wears model’s own t-shirt and leggings by Uniqlo

Lewis: This one really feels like a good finishing image.

Eydie:

Yeah, it feels like the way Lewis’s friends are falling into mine that they are all in the same place, like the whole transatlantic gap isn’t there.

Lewis:

I think that if you look at the kind of people that we shoot they could easily be friends or hang out and get along no matter where they were.

Would you two get on if you were left in a room together for the day?

Eydie:

I’d hope so.