Rain or Shine for Pacha's Opening Weekend, and How My Process for Photographing Nightlife Has Changed
Fixed lens, experimental approach and new-found respect.
In the Flash is a reader-supported publication about intent and creativity in photography. To join the conversation
It’s been a while since I photographed a party. The start of my editorial career was all nightlife, all the time, a pigeonhole I loved at first, then spent years trying to escape by rebranding myself as a documentary and portrait photographer. Unfortunately, the reinvention was so successful that I stopped getting event shoots altogether. And sure enough, I started missing party assignments, with all their social rituals, digital exhibitionism, and coded cultural signals that make nightlife such a strange pleasure to photograph. The New Yorker assignment to document Pacha’s grand opening weekend in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago was exactly what I had been craving.
I photographed the first night at Pacha for six hours, working while dancing until 3:30 a.m., without so much as a tequila shot, which is always the mark of a good party. Exhausted but inspired by the incredible sound system, I planned to do the same on Sunday, only for thunderstorms and lightning to cut the party short, ending it on a soggy, chaotic note. By the time I got home, everything was soaked through except my camera, which, double-wrapped in a poncho, was marked safe from the great Pacha downpour of 2026.
