Hey, Water Moccasin
Carlos is the one who coined the nickname Water Moccasin for my friend Megan. If you follow club photo websites, you might understand the moniker. If not, I won't be getting into it right now.
Megan is a photographer par excellence. And for a very short time, Megan the Water Moccasin and I were collaborators, our misadventures having been documented in The Rockit, Razorcake and a handful of other publications. Then she moved, essentially leaving me alone in L.A. to try and figure out how to shoot photos inside a club without using the flash.
Today, while I was stuck in traffic on the 101, I received a text message from Megan. She was at Warped Tour, somewhere in the New Jersey area where it was already after 5 p.m. She wrote briefly about vomit, bad fashion and $5 lemonades, our favorite topics of discussion for the summer festival season. I returned the text, stating that I wish I could be there. She returned that message with the same.
I never really collaborated with people on projects, mostly because I hadn't really come into contact with anyone who had the same vision I did. Then Megan and I began working together. I think that what made our partnership successful was that we both treated every concert as though it were a war zone. It didn't matter if we were in a dive-y bar, heinous Hollywood club or festival grounds, we treated every assignment as if it were the most important story in the world at that moment. Everything surrounding that concert-- the smell of unwashed metal heads, the puddles of unidentifiable substances on the ground, etc.-- became part of the stories. We prided ourselves on really getting into the environment surrounding the event (only hanging out in the VIP long enough to edit photos, catch up on notes and use the bathrooms), even if that meant that we often came home covered in filth and blowing black snot for the next few days.
Then there was the fact that plain old weird stuff happened to us on assignment. She got stuck babysitting the children of sunburned drunks at Ozzfest and I almost got kicked out of Coachella. Oh, and let us not forget the riot at San Diego Street Scene. (I would post links, but none of these stories are online.)
Thanks to geography, we haven't worked together since Coachella, 2007. I think this needs to change soon. Got any ideas, Water Moccasin?
Megan is a photographer par excellence. And for a very short time, Megan the Water Moccasin and I were collaborators, our misadventures having been documented in The Rockit, Razorcake and a handful of other publications. Then she moved, essentially leaving me alone in L.A. to try and figure out how to shoot photos inside a club without using the flash.
Today, while I was stuck in traffic on the 101, I received a text message from Megan. She was at Warped Tour, somewhere in the New Jersey area where it was already after 5 p.m. She wrote briefly about vomit, bad fashion and $5 lemonades, our favorite topics of discussion for the summer festival season. I returned the text, stating that I wish I could be there. She returned that message with the same.
I never really collaborated with people on projects, mostly because I hadn't really come into contact with anyone who had the same vision I did. Then Megan and I began working together. I think that what made our partnership successful was that we both treated every concert as though it were a war zone. It didn't matter if we were in a dive-y bar, heinous Hollywood club or festival grounds, we treated every assignment as if it were the most important story in the world at that moment. Everything surrounding that concert-- the smell of unwashed metal heads, the puddles of unidentifiable substances on the ground, etc.-- became part of the stories. We prided ourselves on really getting into the environment surrounding the event (only hanging out in the VIP long enough to edit photos, catch up on notes and use the bathrooms), even if that meant that we often came home covered in filth and blowing black snot for the next few days.
Then there was the fact that plain old weird stuff happened to us on assignment. She got stuck babysitting the children of sunburned drunks at Ozzfest and I almost got kicked out of Coachella. Oh, and let us not forget the riot at San Diego Street Scene. (I would post links, but none of these stories are online.)
Thanks to geography, we haven't worked together since Coachella, 2007. I think this needs to change soon. Got any ideas, Water Moccasin?
Labels: Music Festivals
posted by liz o. at
4:24 PM
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