Snap to it
Inside the emerging trend of party photography
Last Updated: Monday, July 14, 2008 | 1:27 PM ET
By Hannah Sung, CBC News
A shot by Toronto party photographer Zach Slootsky. (Zach Slootsky/Takemorephotos.com) Party culture morphs quickly. Ten years ago, revelers worshipped at the DJ booth; now, they pray to the camera lens. Indeed, hefty fees once reserved for marquee DJs are being paid to photographers who shoot party people and post the photos on the web.
Sites like The Cobrasnake, Last Night’s Party and MisShapes are a direct product of the convergence of digital photography, the web and the voracious appetite for quirky, youth-driven style. But unlike the paparazzi stalking celebrities, this new crop of shutterbugs makes mere mortals their muse (albeit mortals who are pretty and cool). This internet-driven phenomenon has grown alongside the rise of celebrity culture for a decidedly democratic reason: it’s where the non-famous can get face time, too. As for the photographers, they’re quite likely to climb past cult status into book deals, ad campaigns and a jet-set lifestyle.
Twenty-two-year-old Mark Hunter, the man better known as the Cobrasnake, is one of the biggest names in party snaps — and exudes L.A. casual confidence. “I started well over four years ago now and was one of the innovators with this style,” he told me recently. He was talking on his cellphone en route to the airport after a 12-hour stop in New York City to take meetings. He would spend the next week shooting parties in Warsaw and Prague, then post the photos in his online gallery. (The Cobrasnake site is recognizable for its trademark layout, which displays photos on what looks like a series of diner receipts.)
While The Cobrasnake is part of a seemingly unstoppable new trend, party snaps themselves are nothing new. At the height of the disco era in the late 1970s, photographer Patrick McMullan hung out at Hollywood premieres and New York clubs to document how the glamorous got their kicks. McMullan translated his status as a regular at the famous Studio 54 into a long career and is now part of a stable of photographers who document the Big Apple’s social calendar. McMullan, who shoots for major glossy magazines such as Vogue, Allure and Vanity Fair, has become an inspiration to a new generation.
“I love looking at his photos,” Hunter says of McMullan. “I think especially back in those early years, he had a lot more candour and fun stuff. He would tell me that sometimes it was either buying a couple rolls of film or buying dinner — and he would buy film. The passion right there is super inspiring, and I think that in 20, 30 years, my photos will have a similar nostalgic value.”
A shot by Los Angeles-based photographer Mark Hunter, better known as the Cobrasnake. (Mark Hunter/Thecobrasnake.com) The difference between party snaps then and now is that what used to be a souvenir of the event — namely, a photograph — has become the event. Photos have a way of embellishing the truth, elevating a fairly forgettable party to a mythic level. A photographer just needs a good eye and a willing subject — and there is no shortage of the latter. The current generation of clubgoers is used to mugging for MySpace and Facebook, and as the photos taken by Hunter or Merlin Bronques (Last Night’s Party), demonstrate, these amateur models show great skill at striking poses.
Hunter relates an anecdote: “I was in Kuala Lumpur, and one of the kids said, ‘You know, all these kids dressed up because they knew you were going to be here.’ I was like, ‘Wow. I didn’t think about that.’ I can see it being like, survival of the fittest, now that party photos are a commodity. The more you have, the better; the more people who want to take your photo, the cooler you are, I guess.”
At their most garish, these are shots of people getting drunk; at their best, they document the exciting edge of nightlife, its characters and costumes. In Merlin Bronques’s pictures, which are quite racy, men and women routinely lose their shirts and pants. A former Montreal musician, Bronques broke up his band to shoot nightlife in New York because it was “more rock ‘n’ roll.” He’s known for wearing a wig and glasses at events, and his personal brand has become so distinctive that he was asked to collaborate on N.E.R.D’s recent video for Everyone Nose, a loving satire of messy, boozy (and powdery) nights. Directed by Diane Martel with Bronques shooting stills, the video features plenty of half-dressed women — a fixture of Last Night’s Party — and walk-through appearances by Kanye West and Lindsay Lohan.
For a young, fashion-conscious, web-savvy audience driven by street style rather than haute couture, being featured on a website like The Cobrasnake or Last Night’s Party is instantly gratifying and can lead to a celebrity all its own. Perhaps the most famous such icon is Cory Kennedy, whose prominence on The Cobrasnake led to a modeling career.
The Cobrasnake reportedly gets 20,000 hits a day; Last Night’s Party gets 40,000. Countless nightlife photo bloggers have joined the gold rush. Close to home, there’s The Friend Attack in Montreal and TakeMorePhotos, operated by Toronto’s Zach Slootsky. Slootsky, 24, began in 2003 by taking photos of friends and putting them on his brother’s web space. “Then I picked up a digital SLR and started doing it more," he says. "People started asking me to come to their parties and hooking me up with guest lists and drinks.”
Zach Slootsky captures partygoers at the Toronto mega-club Circa. (Zach Slootsky/Takemorephotos.com) On a recent Friday night in downtown Toronto, Slootsky wanders Circa, a cavernous mega-club owned by former New York club kingpin Peter Gatien. The party promoters have paid Slootsky to shoot, but at 10:30, Circa is all but empty save for a group of girls in short and shiny dresses. They jump on stage and lift their arms in the air when the DJ plays a hot tune. Slootsky sidles in between them and shoots a few photos. Slootsky doesn’t ask before he shoots a photo; he simply gestures with his camera for a moment before snapping away.
An hour later, the club is beginning to fill with a mix of crowds; there are hoodies, heels, piercings and grey suits (and grey hair). It is nowhere near capacity, and yet it seems there is a photographer at every turn: I see at least four, one with a video camera. Is this half-filled party really worth that many lenses?
“Cobrasnake and Last Night’s Party have made things easier but also harder, because there’s more competition now,” Slootsky admits. One of his personal influences is Nikola Tamindzic, a New York photographer who made his name shooting parties for Gawker.com and used internet nightlife photography as a way station for his long-term ambitions, which include arty portraiture.
“I think that there’s room for all of us,” says Hunter. “Cool things deserve to be documented, and I can’t be everywhere, so it’s nice that there are other outlets for these creative parties.”
But the more common these sites become, the harder photo bloggers like Hunter and Slootsky will have to work to create their magic, which often means creating scenes of blissful revelry out of largely mundane moments.
“I try to do my best to decipher if someone’s overacting for the camera, because I’m not there just to have a bunch of people showing off,” Hunter says. “I rarely ask to take people’s photos.”
I ask Slootsky how much play-acting goes on and whether his pics give a true impression of the nature of a party. “I don’t think they’re dishonest, but they’re not journalism-honest,” he says. “It’s like a more potent version of the party.”
Hannah Sung is a writer based in Toronto.
