The day before my recent trip to Brazil, I had dinner and drinks with an artist friend. This is the same artist friend who has been pushing me to think beyond my interest in images taken “after dark” as a simple exercise in where and how people gather, and consider the deeper motivations for this project.
I’m still thinking.
To help me in the process I returned to Matrix, located in Vila Madalena, a neighborhood that hosts a mix of bohemian and upper class bars in the mass of buildings that form São Paulo.
Matrix persists in provoking the thoughts of what draws me to create images of life after most people are tucked into their beds. It’s not my insomnia, or my jet lag. It’s not my love of nightlife.
Perhaps it’s related to my interest in watching a side of life that is witnessed by only a handful of people.
What was it about Matrix that drew me in?
Why did I want to return to Matrix and explore its intestines?
What was it about the fact that there are only five or six tables, a dance floor that is completely black, save for a few laser lights, that motivates me to stand around and take pictures?
Was it listening to The Smiths, Nirvana, the Rolling Stones, and Patty Smith?
Why was the billiard room there at all and why in the back of the bar?
By the end of the night I was no closer to an answer to the question of what draws me to photograph life “after dark”.
Perhaps it is simply the odd notion that there is something to be said for witnessing people find a commonality among the senses that can only be found in bars and music clubs, breaking down barriers and opening themselves to just being.
Perhaps. I’m still thinking.
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