Shadow Gather doesn’t believe in redos. Not when she’s photographing drag queens with a Fujifilm Instax Mini, using an iPhone flashlight as a substitute for a proper key light, in the middle of a sweaty nightclub packed wall to wall with bodies, fog, wigs and subwoofer tremors. Not when a rogue strip of false lashes gets caught in the viewfinder. And definitely not when she’s building a 2,160-photo archive of Denver nightlife with a cocktail in one hand and a print she may or may not have dropped in an alley in the other.
For the Denver-based instant-film photographer and self-proclaimed nightlife devotee, with her subjects, it’s one-and-done. If someone blinked, they blinked. If half of their head got cut off, well, let’s hope they were having a good neck night.
“The imperfections make them relatable,” she said. “’Cause let’s face it, none of us are perfect…and in a digital age with filters, it’s kind of nice to see a little hot mess.”…