Crime of Fashion

There's something strange going on in this series by photographer Biel Capllonch – something that involves missing persons, enigmatic clues and stray body parts. We're in the midst of a good old-fashioned murder mystery, a detective thriller in which the all-male cast investigates a string of crime scenes, and makes some creepy discoveries along the way. And yet these guys seem rather more concerned with looking chic than solving the case.

The good old days

Tim Walker is chiefly known for his fantastical fashion photography, but there’s a bit more to him than that. Having dabbled in portraiture and documentary early on, he has more recently turned his hand to art photography. In style, these pictures retain hints of that carnival, toyshop aesthetic and love of gothic fairytale that characterises his fashion shots. But in feel they have a personality all their own; wistful rather than glossy, with a romantic, reflective atmosphere – and a large helping of good old British nostalgia.

Creatures of the deep

Fashion photography grows evermore bizarre thanks to people like Rene & Radka. In the name of style, this acclaimed duo creates a distinctive, richly-coloured world full of smoking bunny rabbits and creatures of the deep. It's a world of some contradiction too: sumptuous, carnivalesque and often comical, but also decidedly spooky. Their 'Underwater' series in particular has rather eerie connotations. The models - with their deathly pallor, closed eyes and billowing vestments – look suspiciously like lost drowned souls.

Virtual insanity

Any outlandish idea can be realised on a computer these days so, for many modern photographers, reality goes out the window - and Gilles de Beauchene is no exception. An advertising and editorial regular, Beauchene always gives his images a glossy sheen and a mischievous sense of humour (a profitable combination when you're trying to sell something).

Through the Peephole

Viewing these images by artist In Sook Kim makes you feel like something of a peeping tom. And so they should. Her meticulously staged scenes are designed to confront issues such as voyeurism, objectification and alienation, as well as social and sexual mores: a woman stands naked on sale to the highest bidder (in Die Auktion/The Auction 2006 above); or a hundred-and-one scenarios (ranging from kinky to upsetting) are played out in the seedy rooms of a hotel. Secret lives are here exposed to public view.

The best days of their lives

School days can be miserable, angsty and boring - or the best time of your life. So in her photographic series 'School Play', Julia Fullerton-Batten takes this to extremes and pictures school as halfway between Malory Towers and prison. Sticking to her signature style (artificially staged, immaculately finished and jarringly odd), Fullerton-Batten photographs cloned school girls going about the regimented rituals of boarding school.

Innocence abroad

They may be set in leafy glades, tropical ponds and forest groves, but Ruud van Empel's photographs look far from natural. Manipulated almost to excess, these images (such as World #26, 2008 above) are contrived collages, patched together from hundreds of separate photographs to make an exotic Eden that is populated by strangely flawless children - big-eyed, perfect-skinned, beautifully turned-out little cherubs who are not only too immaculate but also too composed, too adult to be believed.

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