In this week's edition of "The Eye of a Clown," Slipknot percussionist and creative photographer Shawn Crahan discusses a scary portrait he took of a guy named Satone. If you're lacking some company around your Thanksgiving dinner table, why not keep your computer monitor on and have Satone join you for turkey and stuffing. Just remember to turn off the screen after the meal or he'll transmit his energy through your connective wires and possess your mother-lovin' soul. Speakin' of mother, if she's there, remember to give her a big hug -- even if she's that shriveled old corpse in your living room rocking chair. Happy Turkey Day, y'all (click "more" to see Clown's photo).
Satone was my first tech during the 1998 self-titled release. He’s a dear friend and someone close to my family. He is someone I was always experimenting with for my music and photography, and we did some really big conceptual photography. Me and Joey [Jordison] came up with this concept of shooting Satone in cellophane, and that’s the picture that’s underneath the CD of our first record.
For me, he’s an experiment because he is a serious human being. He’s cut open, so I can apply my thought process with him. I shot this a good week after he got the tattoo on his face that I spent a good month trying to convince him not to get… Not convincing him not to get it, but telling him all the things people might say about why he shouldn’t get it. And once I exhausted all of those, he determined that none of them were good enough and he got it. I was merely helping him so he would have no regrets. I think it’s awesome. I paid for it.
When we did this, I said, “Okay, we’re gonna do this right here, right now,” and I let him be himself. That’s what this experiment was. When I do portraits of people, I really try to capture the person. I try to create a scenario that encourages them to be themselves and then I try to capture who they are. I love it because I feel like I caught the inside of him by showing the outside.
I did a lot of manipulation with this shot. I like the scratches, the hair, the digital pops, the stretching -- all the stuff that I ruin the perfect piece with. I’m not into the perfect piece because, for me, there’s no such thing. And I like the randomness of the rest of it because that’s what life is.
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