Taking inspiration from one of my favorite photobooks, Ballet by Alexey Brodivitch, and Japanese artists from the Provoke Era like Daidō Moriyama and Eikoh Hosoe, I created a photobook that features the movement and rhythm of the moshpit. I would run into the pit with my ISO and shutter speed at some random ass number and create a small protective barrier with my arms (which was probably as helpful as my left toe), and snap as many pictures I could with people shoving me left and right. I let the pit decide what pictures I was going to take as I essentially let my body flow with the pit, and my fingers pressing the button whenever I felt a force in my hand. Post-production, I turned all the photos black and white as it brought out the details of movement that I really wanted to capture. When working on the layout of the book, I really let myself play with the photos and do whatever the fuck I wanted to: cutting up photos in half and separating them with another photo in the middle, cropping out one specific section of a photo to shove randomly, and combining different photos to make one photo. The blurriness and dramatic cut of the photos allowed the book to have a rhythm, a rhythm I would often times find in the pit. Originally I planned to spray paint the cover, which had a dust jacket, but I ultimately decided against it. I ripped the dust jacket off and took the book to The Blue Room’s final show of the year (yes the one where everyone got covid bahahhaa) and had everyone sign it. The Blue Room was my safe haven and happiness this semester, and I have met some amazing people and made dope ass friends there. This book wouldn’t have been possible at all without this amazing community and I wanted to highlight that in this book. Everyone, whether it was their first time at The Blue Room or frequent goers, was a part of this book. UP THE PUNKS🖤🖤🖤

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