Ismael Quintanilla III
The Guacamole Police
On March 6th, 2020, following the City of Austin’s health recommendations, South by Southwest organizers announced the cancelation of their annual conference. Confusion, sadness and despair followed. Local venues, promoters and bands endured the blow, then persevered by organizing a week of makeup shows in hopes of offsetting some of the financial damages. Nonetheless, health concerns continued to grow, all concerts were eventually canceled and the Austin music scene was paralyzed. Even after so much loss, the pandemic still didn’t feel real.
In the following months, the world changed in ways I could’ve never predicted. Normality was constantly being redefined, and we were forced to adapt month to month, week to week, and in some cases, day to day. Live music — the backbone of my identity as an artist — was one of the first industries to shut down. I felt disconnected, lost and sad. Over the last five years, I’ve dedicated my life to photographing music. Local shows, touring bands, music festivals, recording studios, musician portraits — I’ve loved every moment of it. My closest friends, my discovery of a larger world, my highest highs in the midst of my lowest lows … all are tied to photographing live music.
Early on, I didn’t want to think about the condition of our world, but lately, I’ve come to embrace the pandemic’s emotional challenges as a path to growth. I choose to embody courage, to be present with my emotional states and to accept the world for what it is. That journey of self-discovery is mirrored in the creation of this book.
Compiling this body of art helped me restore my identity with renewed honesty and vulnerability as vehicles to make the world a better place. The book came to represent artists’ daily struggles to connect with creativity and inspiration. When I started this project, I had no idea how much work it would require. On an emotional level, it brought me face to face with fear, doubt and insecurities. I have never worked on anything of this magnitude and, of course, I decided that doing it during a pandemic was the way to go. There were setbacks, but I moved forward steadily and came to the realization that I didn’t need live music to feel joyful and fulfilled — I needed the connection to people. Our live music scene depends on the community it creates and I believe this book embodies our tribe’s unshakable bond.
These pages showcase the current state of the Austin music community through individual artists’ stories about their experience through the pandemic. Each story offers a distinctly different perspective, written between March and August, and those perspectives dictate the flow of the book. Instead of precisely chronologically, the entries are organized in three experiential phases, which, together, make up a collective emotional experience: initial shock and uncertainty, semi-acceptance and adaptation, and, finally, growth, or efforts to contribute to something bigger than ourselves.
When I started scheduling these shoots, many of you gave me a general timetable, “I’m here all day,” as if your quarantine might be everlasting. But it wasn’t, it can’t be, because this book has already proven how — even as we’ve all taken our own paths at different paces — our community is inevitably united in its determination to support creativity under any circumstance. Each of you offered me your time and sacred space to make your portrait and relate your story, and I can’t thank you all enough for your willingness to be vulnerable. This book is the story of us, our community rising to the challenge of creating during a global pandemic, a story of resilience. I love y’all with everything I’ve got.