Where is Vice + Lice when you need it? A certain promoter and I were talking the other day of the sudden influx of photographers at the "hipster" parties. What the fuck is happening? Seriously, it's starting to feel like we are Britney Spears cruising through the streets of LA.
I remember when it was just Jipsy and us, coexisting peacefully. Needless to say, Jipsy (aka Nefarious Girl) was probably doing this before most of you were conceived (well, she ain't that old) and I'm sure the queen of nightlife photography isn't going to be dethroned anytime soon just because some of you acquired a camera.
And I'm happy to announce that Polariod said in February 2008 is would no longer make Polaroid instant film. Thank god, I never have to see those "ironic" hipster Polaroids that scream "Look-at-me-I'm-so-indie-I-don't-use-a-digital-camera." Which any decent photographer would know that through fiddling with your camera's manual setting you can easily recreate the grainy, washed-out look of a Polaroid film.
You didn't know that? I didn't think so.
as much as i love your ass
sounds like you're talking unnecessary shit.
i agree, lately there have been a great deal of photogs fluttering around the same circle of parties.
in my opinion the more, the merrier. personally, if i walk onto a stage or room of a certain size with more than 2 or 3 photographers working it, I back off.
even so, I don't think it's a bother. it's just more documentation, more evidence of a good time.
as far as polaroids are concerned, i was just taking some this past weekend at the white room. I've been a photographer for almost 8 years now, so believe me when I say I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing. of course if you think i suck, you're totally welcome to your opinion and i'd take no offence to it. (though i'd probably smack you real firm on the ass the next time i see you)
you can layer on filters and put it in a little digi generated frame but you'll never be able to hold a digital print in the same way you can a polaroid. i've been collecting and repairing 70s land cameras since i was in high school. I love the feel of them and bring them out for special occasions. they're fun, they brighten up a party, get people to feeling nostalgic and bring out smiles. why beef on it?
i love nights and the nefarious one and have always admired both of your styles. I've been checking out Jipsy's work for a long time and always give mad props. Doesn't mean that new kids shouldn't be welcomed.
be nice papo.
besos,
chipi
i just want you to simmer down, your blood pressure!!!
a few more years in nightlife and not even the cheerios can help us.
and duran baby, nobody is gonna get mad except for the babies of the world.
and they can't articulate their feelings on here anyway.
too many words to string together.
i'm pretty sure we're on the same page.
:)
It's strange having anyone take your picture when you're out. I mean, I remember going out and no one gave a shit about this sort of thing and frankly, it makes me a little uncomfortable, I feel pressured to put on a show.
I remember one night in NY at this repulsive East Village NYU shithole, these girls or girl-looking boys were dancing on a couch, and basically PRETENDING to have fun for a photographer. Gross! WTF is that? I see that shit here too, and I resent it, because I think it takes away the whole point of going out, which is to look cute enough to get laid and get a few compliments, then get shitfaced, dance till you sweat off your makeup, harass one or two people who you inherently dislike, and then roll home looking like garbage. I want to look like shit at the end of the night, I deserve it! Besides, when there are cameras around, you can't do bad things, and that's another perk of going out. If I'm doing something bad, best believe the camera's going get me. It's happened before. So, cheers on your notes here. Less is more.
He's so classy!
It's the same reason the wear plastic frames with NO LENSES!
because they are stoooopid.
Lackner you're so service minded!
"remember when it was just Jipsy and us"
check that site out though, the guy captures a certain atmosphere and quality of light that NONE of the photographers down here have.
The rest broke down like this:
1) the camerawhore - a person who would persistently and repeatedly assault you to have you take their picture; very aggressive and very extroverted. They they're like Terminator. They'll always be back.
2) the perfectionist - they're usually a part of a group or 3 or more and they always insist you take another picture because they weren't "posed right" or the light "was bad." 99.9% of the time they're female. To be honest the combined powers of Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz, and Herb Ritz couldn't make these types photograph well; they're a lost cause. I would just take their pictures regardless and delete all but the worst one and hand those over to Lackner for photoshoppage.
3) the creepy drunk dude - the name says it all. Drunk guy. Molests girls. Wants photographic evidence of these acts. After you take the pictures he stands uncomfortably close to you, gripping your shoulder intimately (mostly to keep balance) and breathing his bar whiskey breath on your LCD screen as he reviews his victims, undressing them in his mind as he comments how they "want it" with an air of booze and bravado heretofore seen only in the movie "The Accused".
4) the retro dancers - these are rare types, but they always insist you take a picture of them while they "bust their moves". Awesome. I never saw those moves before, they're definitely worth having an archive of. However, there already is a record of those moves: "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo"
5) the regretful, emotionally labile camerawhore - see definition for "camerawhore" above. In addition to being a camerawhore they return 2 hours later, mascara-tinged tears falling into their Grey Goose and tonic, and ask you to remove any photographs you've taken of them doing unspeakable and dubiously moral things with their exposed body parts and various liquor bottles and other implements commonly found on a club dancefloor.
6) the faux artiste / wannabe model - mostly females who want to be photographed in an "artistic" manner in the club. Several minutes are spent finding a properly lit venue and practicing the "model pose." They're dead serious about their photographs like the perfectionists, however, unlike the perfectionists they don't care about any aspect of the final image. They had their fun by wearing their purse on their head while using a club curtain as a kaftan as they peered through the foliage of two potted shrubs (proudly dubbing it an "urban jungle" motif). I never minded these types, but I wished they had given me a hit of whatever they were on.
7) the normals - these are people who'll give 10-15 seconds of their time to be photographed without requiring an NDA and they generally don't have the attitude of a black female postal employee
I've definitely noticed an increase in photographers in clubs lately. A year ago most of the time it was just us at the indie spots. I don't think there's anything bad about it in particular. It'll regulate itself. If the photographers get too annoying, people will just complain and the club will likely ban cameras at the venue.
waiting for espresso to brew, sorry
Actually, not true. Take a look back at some of our galleries from Mar/Apr 2007. I always tried to incorporate club lighting and motion into my photos. I would selectively overexpose scenes and try other random things to get those effects, but I was still learning back then. I hated taking portrait/posed shots because they're so plain and uninteresting to me. I would take the crowd shots, some candids and then hand the camera over to Lackner or BAC for the portraits.
My take on club photography was to capture it the way you (or I) saw it as a clubgoer. I wanted to catch the blurry light phenomenon brought on by dilated pupils cowering from a strobe, the unbalanced Dutch angles mimicking a drunk stagger, the smoke-filled atmosphere, the liquor-induced disinhibition. Posed shots don't require a $3000-$4000 piece of equipment; a point-and-click 35mm camera takes just as good portrait shots for a tenth of the price.
I'm going to print this out and hang it behind my desk at the office.
taking photos is my job.
sometimes i don't want to bring a camera. i just want to get shitty and dance like an idiot. it's these nights where i'll likely get bitched at by the same people who protest or talk shit when i request to take a photo of them.
i've never photographed someone who didn't want to be or someone that I knew shouldnt be. When a girls eyes are rolling into the back of her head, I'm not putting that online. If anything I keep it for myself in the case she turns out to be some politicians daughter.
taking photos is fun. photographer = someone who takes pictures. the distinction between that and an artist is a pretty vast divide. i don't consider what i put up on cooljunkie "art". i take pride in it and apply my personal taste/style but it is what it is - pictures of people having a good time.
i welcome everyone thats been getting behind the lens lately.
also im thankful for duran's shit talking ways to get these kinds of conversations started in the first place. it's always really interesting to see everyones opinion on something that's in your face on the regular but doesn't really get mulled over.
now that's what i call art.
I think Lackner, BAC and I felt the same way. At first it was fun, but then it became a chore. We're mostly at the club to get drunk and stupid, and carrying around an expensive fragile object doesn't really mix well with that attitude. I have much respect for professional club photographers. I don't know how you can stand around in a club, mostly sober, for longer than an hour surrounded by drunk and drugged up people and not want choke someone with the shoulder strap.
I mull over EVERYTHING: the price of bananas at Publix, the visual quality of the asphalt of the road when it rains (you can't see the lines separating the lanes due to reflection), the thoughts in the heads of people who enter an elevator before those who need to exit have gotten out, the reason why my landlady won't give me a copy of my lease after two months of requesting it. I have too much free time from a mental process perspective I think.
I have mad love for cross dressing pigs (according to the article the boots belong to a Paddington Bear doll)
Ah Liz, whoever you are...you pinned the tail on the donkey.
Documenting the scene is all right with me...that is if it were once a month or if it was some sort of special occasion, like folks dressed in elaborate costumes (nerds dressed in Star Wars regalia)...but having pseudo paparazzi almost every goddamn night and feeding the egos of the lowest common denominator in town is the worst thing that has ever happened to these leftfield nights (including hipster dumps in NY and Cali). Back in the day, you would only see that type of stuff in the glamorous bougie south beach/upscale NY clubs and then the pictures would end up in a horrible lil night life magazines like "Ego" (worse magazine/ad zine ever... but great entertainment when making fun of the dummies). Even then, at least that mag had pictures of real or fading starts like Rod Stewart, Huey Lewis, and Mickey Rourke snorting lines off of barley legal rich girls....or ladies who just dished out 3k for vein stretching triple D's.
Anyhoo... counter culture and leftfield clubs are suppose to be the alternative to places like that and now they have become the training shoes for those types of glamorous nights. People just don't keep it real. Everyone wants to be noticed and loved for not even having talent or just being a cool/good person. The majority of folks have attitude as they have earned respect by looking fabulous, slutty, and fierce. This is not counter culture, it is conformity. Breeding all these consumers to buy brand names and feel like they have just purchased status and acceptance. You would expect that from an older crowd, putting their mortgage in jeopardy to by a BMW...but when it is coming from the Youth Culture, all I can say is that THEY got you. You have all been brainwashed in the name of cool and irony. Idealism has been sold out once again...but at least everyone is having fun at the expense of progress.
Nothing against photographers trying to make cheddar, or build up a portfolio...but this nonsense has to stop.
im too hungover to add my full opion BUT..
its true the whole 5 million cameras are getting a bit annoying, and this is coming from me- and lackner knows im quite the camera whore.
i HATE when i walk into a club and right away someone just starts snapping pictures when im just trying to say hello to people. it was fun when you check a website a few days later and find one maybe two pictures of yourself. but now i have to worry about how many bad photos there are of me by noon the next day.
just my thoughts.
AMEN.
The whole photo thing in clubs seems to largely be a uniquely Miami phenomenon, and to a lesser extent, New York and LA. I'm currently "on tour" right now with a major dance music DJ, taking photos, and managing an e-commerce/ticketing system for said artist. Two birds with one stone and all. In the past ten cities I visited, I saw maybe 2 shooters per night, and one was from the local Times/Picayune/Standard/Post/Herald since the events were all 2,000+ sold-out types.
Now, you take Miami. I'm not a hipster shooter, since the hipsters hate me and I'm not really into the scene, though I don't really fault anyone who is, unless they take it too seriously. But the few hipster events I attend, my god, you're right. You've got Jipsy, you guys at MN, that Popness guy or whatever, Peter sometimes, 2night, Eyes On Miami, and a few other random guys and girls sporting xxxD series DSLRs. And me in the back with a drink wondering why I stopped by, god I feel so old.
Really what it comes down to is the price points involved. The aforementioned xxxD series cameras from Canon can be had, lens and all, for under a grand. Hell, Canon just dumped out a 1000D which is gonna go for like $500, with a lens. 10 MP, a decent little stabilized lens, and there ya go. My first digital kit set me back over $3000 six years ago. Nevermind what I paid for when I shot film, yes film, in nightclubs. I have boxes of slides and negs from way back when. So, your hipster photog gives up meth for a week and boom, he's got a shiny new Canon to play photographer with.
I don't forgo anyone the pleasure of photography. What I despise is the dilettante types who do it for attention and "hipness". You quiz them about what they're up to and they give you a blank stare, and just say "Oh, I keep it on 'P' all the time".
And then proceed to jam their lens in the face of the next underfed girl to walk by. Not cool in my book. It makes anyone trying to do this for a living look bad. Thankfully, the way I work precludes any sort of misunderstandings. Other than performers and atmospheric shots, I always let the subjects come to me. I'm not on some hoary 2night-style per-picture payout, so it's easier to let them come to me, get the people who want to be photographed, and then continue on with my night/morning.
Now, I don't think it's a hipster-party thing exclusively. I wasn't in town for this, but over on our forumuser Apotheosis stated that Aero Bar's grand opening had "16 fucking photographers" in attendance. That's way overkill for a small venue like that.
If I was doing PR, I would screen media based on level of exposure, quality of work, and order of request. I think the second one would preclude a lot of the dilettantes.