By now, it is my sincerest wish that you have visited Mr. Roger Kisby's fantastic online body of work. There's really no excuse for you not to have, because I'm pretty sure with each mention of his name so far, I've linked to his website. That and his site resides in my very select "links" column to the right of this photo of a weird girl waiting for said photographer to look away so she can lick the snow.

But that's neither here nor there.

You may say, "Alli, why would I waste my valuable time at work looking at some photographer friend of yours when I could be posting albums of my friends in Cancun on Facebook or tweeting about the pungent smell of curry coming from my co-workers cubicle?"

Right, right, right you only make photo albums on Sundays and who cares if she reads it, because you never liked her or her curry anyway. Whatever.

First thing's first. I knew Roger's work, way before Roger or way before Roger knew me. I knew Roger as the dude that was covering all of the shows I wanted to cover for Getty... for Getty. It was almost creepy how I would go to his Getty library just to see what he was shooting and how he was shooting. Not how as in what lenses he was choosing, but how as in... could I do better?

For example, take a look at his opening photograph on his website. I absolutely couldn't have done better. If that isn't a tiny slice of live music history, I don't what is.

And the crazy thing about Roger was that most often, I couldn't have done better. Not only couldn't I have done better, but a few months later, I did a lot worse and he bailed me out.

There was a show in the lower part of town at the Mercury Lounge, otherwise known as a music photographer's Hell, that Getty wanted me to cover. A trance show that requires none of the cheap colors that comprises the Mercury's lighting "rig", just the artist's little, crazy-trance-person strobes. I was absolutely SOL and I knew it from the beginning. Not even Danny Clinch could have gotten out of this one.*

Shoot. Take (many) artistic liberties. Edit. Submit.

*Ring* *Ring*

It's my favoritest editor in the whole wide world telling me that Getty won't accept the images as shot and that she would like me to shadow one of their long-time music photographers at a show at the Highline Ballroom. Enter Roger Kisby.

Of course, I'm angry at myself, at the situation, at trance music in general, but on the bright side, I get to meet the dude who's been shooting every gig in New York that I wanted to shoot since I had arrived.

To make a long story short, not only was he a good shooter, but he had the nerve to be a pretty cool cat too. I found it quite kind that he agreed to take the time to show some 22-year-old punk (what? he didn't know. I could have been a punk) photographer the ropes of shooting shows, often small club shows, for a major international photo agency. Seriously.

After that, I always looked forward to running into my new photo friend on gigs I was shooting and/or working. Heck, I still look forward to it, because if nothing else, a good friend is great to have around on a job.

What I'm trying to say is look at Roger Kisby's work now and watch it grow over the next few years. Like everything in life, it just keeps getting better.

*That's absolutely a lie, but I'm going to leave it for dramatic purposes

Photo by Roger Kisby/Prospect Park/Brooklyn, NY/1.12.11