I photograph the twenty minutes a band spends being exactly who they are.

I’m Mimi Abitbol, a photographer working out of Brooklyn. I started shooting at all-ages matinees because they were the only shows I could get into, and I never really left that room — the sightlines are worse, the light is worse, and everything that matters happens anyway.

Most of my work is made close to the front, on fast primes, without flash. I care about the crowd as much as the stage: the hands, the sing-alongs, the person who drove four hours and is now standing very still with their eyes shut. A set is a shared thing, and the pictures should say so.

I shoot festival days and single-night club dates, tour runs, press portraits and editorial assignments — from a thousand-cap room down to a basement with one working outlet.