Whether it be party photos, the brainchild of some hipster eastern Oregon community college dropout or even just a fashion blog roll, photoblogs have gone viral.
Mark Hunter or Mark the Cobrasnake may stand at the pinnacle of the photoblog empire when it comes to party documentation.
The 25-year-old Snake works out of his hometown of Los Angeles and was eager to answer questions pertaining to his work of photographing the intoxicated. Actually, he sounded more like he was nursing a hangover after a long night shooting the opening night of Surrender, a new megaclub in Las Vegas. But then again, he doesn’t really drink that much on the job, so he was probably just tired as hell.
Normal people really aren’t supposed to know about guys like Snake. He is one of the obscure, talented individuals who probes deep into the country’s party scene. Snakester provides most of the buzz that’s generated by other bloggers via their stories based around relevant intoxicated people documented by him. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exactly pay the bills. So he’s resorted to the old Yankee business ingenuity of selling vintage clothing that he collects during his travels. There’s no shame in a generous price markup, especially when you’ve got a plethora of fat hipster computer girls drooling over your blog all day.
But getting back to his real work, here’s an interview with the covert party photographer:

AH: What have you guys been doing as of late? Did you shoot a party last night?

MH: Yeah, I was in Las Vegas with Steve Aoki.

AH: Did he spin there?

MH: Yeah, he played a show. It went really good. It was the opening of a brand new megaclub. It was packed and full of crazy, drunk people.

AH: Pretty standard for you though, huh?

MH: (chuckles) Yeah. Definitely.

AH: How’s dealing with drunk people when you’re trying to take pictures? They must love it, but do you run into any trouble?

MH: Um, I mean the worst thing is like getting drinks spilled on me or my camera. But besides that, drunk people, 99 percent of the time, are pretty amusing.

AH: So do you stay relatively sober throughout the night?

MH: Yeah, I’m rarely drinking.

AH: So you don’t get in on the Grey Goose and champagne then?

MH: No, I might have a beer or something.
AH: You guys (at Dim Mak) seem like a pretty tight crew: you Steve Aoki and your hodgepodge of pretty ladies.

MH: Well yeah, we’ve been working together for years now; he’s like my best friend. We travel around the world doing our thing. It’s pretty cool that pretty much anywhere we can think of, we can go and do a show and it’ll be pretty insane. So it always surprises me when we travel to some random place like Bali or weird parts of Asia and there’s just like 1,000-plus kids ready to dance and have a good time.

AH: That sounds like a pretty tough life, but that’s just me. So are you technically
employed by the label?

MH: No, I mean we just work together. I just do my own thing.

AH: So how do you make money, if you don’t mind me asking?

MH: Well, I have an online store. So I travel and I buy some vintage clothing and sell it online. Occasionally I can get hired to take photos for different things.

AH: I saw your Helmut Lang shoot. Are you doing a lot of stuff like that lately?

MH: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been doing more fashion stuff and just trying to try new things all the time.

AH: Is that where you see yourself going? In to more fashion shooting and stuff like that?

MH: Well, yeah, I always liked fashion, and you know we go to all the fashion weeks and stuff.

AH: You think the photoblog route is a good way for aspiring photographers to go?

MH: Yeah, I mean everybody should try their own thing, but I feel it’s a pretty standard thing to take advantage of the Internet now because we can reach a large audience that way.

AH: Did you receive any formal training as a photographer?

MH: Just from in high school.

AH: It must be kind of weird being in an alternative crowd, but you’re around high-profile celebrities all the time? How’s that? I think it’d be kind of weird.

MH: I don’t think it’s weird. If you grow up around it, it doesn’t really matter too much.

AH: Are you able to generate any ad revenue via your photoblog?

MH: I don’t have any ads.

AH: You obviously have been approached by people about that, why not?

MH: Yeah, it’s not really something that I wanted to do.

AH: How many hits (does your site get) per day?

MH: A lot.

AH: How many parties or shoots do you do a week?

MH: Pretty much one a day. I’m shooting pretty much every day.

AH: Does it get pretty taxing?

MH: Yes, as anything would. 

AH: You have a pretty unique vantage point being a photographer in the party scene; how do you think the legalization on the ballot measure in November would change stuff up if it were to pass as far as the party scene’s concerned?

MH: I mean, I don’t think it’s going to make that much of a difference. People that want to smoke weed are going to smoke weed.

AH: You don’t think it’ll have a huge effect on the tone of parties?

MH: Na, not really.

AH: What’s the climate down there in regards to the ballot measure? Is it going to pass? Or what’s your take?

MH: I mean it’s great for tax revenue, so I hope it works.
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