A few weeks back, my best friend and I attended Uncool Fest, a music festival in Oakland put on by Uncool Records. This year’s lineup included Danger, Feels, Dog Party, Colleen Green, The Garden, and SWMRS.
Originally, this was going to be a post about that show, but instead this is going to be a post about Alice Baxley.
Alice Baxley is a freelance photographer based in California who has shot for publications such as Vice and Live Nation. She has also gone on tour with bands such as FIDLAR and SWMRS as a concert photographer. When I heard both bands for the first time last year, I began looking at a lot of their stuff online, and found a lot of interesting pictures of their shows. Before this, I had never really thought about concert photography or who was behind the images, but something about the way Alice Baxley is able to capture the energy of live shows is really intriguing to me, and it’s what got me interested in concert photography.
After SWMRS gave the final performance of the night at Uncool Fest, Alice Baxley was stationed across from the merch table taking portraits of concert-goers. My friend and I got our picture taken and afterwards my friend physically dragged me over to Alice Baxley because she knew how much I wanted to talk to her. I was really nervous and don’t completely remember what happened, but according to my friend the interaction went something like this…
Me: Sorry, uh, this is kinda weird but…
Her: *looks over and is confused about why I’m approaching her*
Me: Uh, I just wanted to say that, uh, you’re like the reason I’m interested in photography.
Her: Oh, thank you. What’s your name?
Me: Dylan
Me: *runs away*
You can check out Alice Baxley’s work here!
