Cult Leader: Charlotte Rutherford

This spring the Lazy Oaf team are traveling around London and beyond to interview some of our favourite Cult Leaders from the UK who are making waves and pushing boundaries within their fields. To kick off our series, we visited the home and workspace of photographer, digital innovator and alien lover Charlotte Rutherford... I’m 22, I was born in Texas, grew up in Norwich and now live in London. I’m a photographer and a director. I mostly direct music videos but I’ve also started doing short, 30 second videos that are fun, I like to call them ‘skits’. I do a couple of shoots a week, mainly fashion or music. If I’m shooting, I have to get up pretty early but when I’m not doing that, I spend most of my time retouching. I retouch every single day. Even if I’m shooting, I come back and retouch when I get home till like 2 in the morning! I like to make my photos look all shiny. While I’m retouching I like to listen to Dateline which is a really good murder mystery series on YouTube with each episode lasting 40 minutes. There are about 100 episodes and I’ve got through all of them now. I’d describe my photography style as quite cartoony. It’s like a joke, but I’m being quite serious about it being a joke! My work is inspired by lots of stuff, like the things you thought were really cool when you were younger, but that were actually really lame at the same time. Like when I thought it was cool to wear sweatbands or chains on my jeans. It’s awesome but also the cringiest thing ever! I’m inspired by the stuff that’s on the line of being really good or really bad. Also watching loads of cartoons, especially the ones that used to be on Cartoon Network and MTV like Ren & Stimpy and all those manic cartoons. This year I am really into aliens because I have been watching X-Files and it’s like the best thing ever. I like the slime and the neon green colours and all the futuristic stuff too like the little glasses they wear in the Matrix. Instead of iPhones and selfies, it’s all about aliens and alien technology. If I had the chance to take a one-way ticket to Mars I wouldn’t want to go. I like sci-fi aliens that you could hang out with rather than the real thing. I’d just be thinking about all the things I could be doing while I was sat on that space ship. I think there are other people out there who want it a lot more than me! I like the Lazy Oaf skull outfit I’m wearing because it’s mean but cute at the same time. The face of the skull reminds me of a spoiled brat kid, it’s cute but it’s also a bit evil. Which I like. See more of Charlotte's work by visting her website and Tumblr! Stay tuned for our next Cult Leader coming next week...