Hilary Swift: Beach Goth Party Photos & Reflection

GALLERY

When I was 19, my favorite musician was Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls. I was going to college in Iowa and when my friend, Connor Mulhern, asked me if I wanted to photograph a Frank Turner show for dyingscene.com, I was very enthusiastic about the opportunity. I met up with Connor in Milwaukee, WI, and we interviewed and took pictures of Frank and the opening act, Andrew Jackson Jihad (AJJ).
I photographed to the best of my abilities for someone who didn't know what an aperture was. Although I was dissatisfied with the images I took, I became enamored with the experience. This show was the inciting incident for what would soon become an obsession with photography. An obsession that would eventually take me across the country to Ventura, California to study photojournalism.
I think it is significant that I photographed AJJ exactly three years from when these images were taken. I took the first ones at a very formative time in my life. Now, as I prepare to graduate in December, it feels like an important benchmark. Today, I am just as unhappy with the images as I was in 2011. My hope is that in three years I can photograph AJJ again and feel just as dissatisfied. If there is one thing I've learned during these last few years, it is that dissatisfaction breeds growth and powers improvement. LINK TO THE GALLERY