Hayley Evans captions:
I Must Be Dead (Mckay Jaffe) is a Pheonix-based photographer who challenges conventional representations of identity through experimental portraiture. Rich with narrative and exploding with color, his works are consistently enrapturing and unsettling, in that they collide sensuality with horror, beauty with death. The faces of his bizarre models are intensely expressive, and usually obscured in some way, such as with paint, masks, and/or deep shadows. … Some of Jaffe’s work comes from the Burning Man festival, where he captures subjects befitting to his oeuvre: people actively inhabiting alternative identities and lifestyles.
Jennifer Gori offers background on the artist’s name:
The sarcastic moniker ‘I Must Be Dead‘ … comes from a poem he has tattooed on his arm. His taste for tattoo art can also be found on the skin of his models, as many of the most famous tattooed pinups have ended up in front of his camera. It is clear that I Must Be Dead has a weakness for bodies, displayed in provocative poses, sardonic allusions and twisted humor, the result both disturbing and bewitching.
The Dish 