Mitchell Wojcik: You Can't Fight the Negative
The Brooklyn photographer on embracing the edgy, meeting The Wonder Years, his near-death experience and more.
VANCOUVER — I had a feeling Mitchell Wojcik and I would hit it off when he emailed me to say he was running a little late. It was Saturday—a full 24 hours before our scheduled interview. When I didn’t respond, he replied to the thread “oh my god, we're doing this tomorrow.” Pure comedy, in part, because, up until that point, I thought our chat was scheduled for Monday—a full 24 hours after our interview was actually scheduled.
Calendar calamities aside, it’s clear to me that Mitchell cares deeply about the details. From his early days playing in the scene as part of Michigan hardcore outfit Set Sail, to eventually documenting it as a photographer for The Wonder Years, Fall Out Boy Hellogoodbye, PUP, CHVRCHES, and more, he possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of music and musicians. Whatsmore his photography has helped push hardcore and punk’s visual language forward, with images that somehow manage to feel equal parts fresh, familiar, and fucked up.
Our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, touched on his early days outside of Detroit, meeting The Wonder Years, embracing non-alcoholic beverages, his recent trip to the Pacific Northwest, his near-death experience, and why you “can’t fight the negative.” Let’s open this pit up.
ES: Welcome to the newsletter – I’m so excited to chat with you.
MW: Of course man, happy to be here. Sorry it took so long to get together, I get spacey when I’m busy, and then things fall by the wayside.
ES: So you’re super busy at the moment?
MW: Pretty busy, yeah. I took a full-time job last year so I’ve been running full speed at that, and then I still have freelance projects on top of keeping a family.
ES: Is that the line producer job I saw on Instagram?
MW: That’s the one. Line producer and in-house photographer for Johannes Leonardo which is an advertising agency. I run our in-house studio.
ES: How have you found the transition into corporate life?
MW: It’s interesting because it takes this hardcore and punk ethos that I’ve grown from touring, and freelancing as an artist, and wraps it into a more professional, corporate space… It’s pretty fun. I toe the line and I’m a little edgy, if you will, towards that kind of stuff.
ES: That’s funny, as I was prepping for this, the word I kept coming back to when I think about your work is ‘edgy.’ I was worried it was the wrong word, but so many of your photos contain something compelling but kind of fucked up.
MW: I appreciate that. I was thinking about this recently when I was chatting with my friend Jon Stars. He’s a photographer, he did some album covers for Beach Slang. Some of their earlier stuff.
ES: Oh nice.
MW: He’s a fashion photographer who really helped me in the last half-decade figure out how to work with film in a better more exciting way. He always says “You can’t fight the negative.” Whatever you’ve shot is what you’ve shot and that’s what it looks like. I’ve kind of taken that mantra as my own. When I look at my work, if something is off or wrong with the way that I shot it, I have to work with it. I can’t push against it to make it something that it’s not. Looking back through my archive of 20-ish years, there are things that seem edgy or off, but it’s like “No, that’s just how I shot it.” It’s predictably me, it is what it is.
ES: That’s so cool. One of the reasons I gravitate toward your work, I think, is that we’re living in a time when images have been flattened and everything looks really similar. When you see something that’s kind of fucked up by Instagram standards, it resonates. Like yesterday you posted something that looked like it was taken on your cellphone or something? The one of people at a diner?
MW: This was a photo I took with a film camera. It’s super under-exposed so that’s why the blacks sit so light. It’s an out-of-focus shot from a nice night my partner and I had. I’m just embracing that stuff.
ES: It looks different from everything else in-feed and tells me something about your personality.
MW: It’s interesting you bring that up. I spent a lot of quarantine time re-thinking “How do I approach my work? What do I want it to look like?” At the heart of it, I really enjoy the handwriting with just the raw image. I love that appeal, but it’s a lot of work to keep up with for social media, so I’ve kinda stepped back from that unless I’m formally presenting my work.
ES: I think there’s space for both approaches. I’ve also been trying to have more fun on Instagram, to be messier and less curated. There’s something joyful about that.
MW: I’m trying to not be precious anymore. Not fighting the negative. Letting things go and letting the thing be what it is… I’m trying to just put stuff out there and have it be in the world. Instagram is not the end all, be all when it comes to art. It’s a playful place to be, it’s a sketchbook. Social media is meant to be fun. I know a lot of people use Instagram as a portfolio, and companies and places look at it as such, but I’ve always approached it as an extension of what I do. When clients ask you to present something, you normally gear that toward whatever the project would be anyway.
ES: Do you feel like your relationship with Instagram has changed as a result of you entering the corporate world and maybe wanting a fun outlet to offset that?
MW: I do, actually. I think the Instagram space for me is a place to play, post random work, stuff I’m having fun with. But I’m also using it to showcase archive work. Images I shot 10 or 15 years ago that I didn’t know how to showcase or put out. Now I understand the best way to present film and how I see it and what I want to put out there. I love posting the new projects I’m working on with different bands… But then it’s like here’s a photo of my dog that I took while we were waiting at the airport, or here is a photo from my friend’s art opening on Thursday night.
It’s an extension of my art and it’s a great place to put it. It’s like having a Tumblr or LiveJournal, when it was that, or a MySpace photo album.
ES: I think the key is definitely to use whatever tool is most fun or approachable.
MW: Absolutely. There’s nothing wrong with working hard toward something. I have a few projects coming up that have a lot of groundwork that is hard to get done and I think that’s absolutely worth doing. But in the interim, this is a great way for me to keep momentum – not only in the sense of putting work out there –but for me in general. It’s a short-term goal that helps me feel like I’m making progress while still working on larger projects.
ES: How many cameras do you own at this point?
MW: So many, man. Laughs.
ES: What’s your daily driver?
MW: I just broke all of my film point-and-shoots so I’ve been using this Canon Powershot a3100 IS.
ES: Buddy, I was using my fiancée’s old Powershot earlier this year. It’s really great.
MW: Yeah this is 12 megapixels. It shoots JPEGs that are just big enough. The flash is great. It’s a workhorse. I’ve figured out how to retouch the photos digitally so that I like how they look and am comfortable putting them out into the world.
ES: That’s such a funny coincidence. I’ve been having a bit of a love affair with that camera, although I may have broken Leah’s.
MW: The good news is they’re not more than $100.
Me and a couple of buddies took a boys’ trip to Seattle to see the Botch reunion and I brought this Canon point-and-soot and basically, minus another camera that I used at the show one night, I lived on it. I sent them a folder after that was reminiscent of the end of The Hangover. Just a slideshow of photos. But everyone thought it was so funny. It’s a camera I can take anywhere and not be too precious with.
ES: How was the Botch reunion? I never really got into them.
MW: Oh dude, it was so fun. The show itself was great. They sounded awesome. I had never seen them before they broke up, and I’d always loved the music, I really loved that last EP they put out. I’d seen a lot of their related projects: Narrows, These Arms Are Snakes, and Russian Circles. So to see the band that started them off was amazing. Their musicianship was out of this world.
And on top of that, I got to see all the friends that grew up with that band, who were super into that band. So it was a weekend of really big hangs. I saw so many photographers from the hardcore scene, booking agents. I had drinks with the dudes from Pianos Become The Teeth, who I hadn’t seen since we worked together [on their 2014 album] Keep You.
We went to a wine shop that a friend of mine owns in Seattle… It was me, my two friends that I flew out with, our friend that owns the wine shop and then the other guitar player from Minus the Bear came to hang out, and Ben Gibbard was there.
ES: Dude.
MW: We just sat and had wine and talked about going to hardcore shows. They were going the next night and they were so excited to see them… It was just so much fun. It was a big weekend centered on this one reunion and everyone was so excited. It felt like the community was coming from all over. It was insane. It was one of those things where, as you get older and into this more corporate world, you get further away from that sort of thing. So it was a great reminder.
ES: Totally. And sorry, to clarify, Ben Gibbard was going to the Botch show?
MW: Yeah.
ES: What the fuck that’s crazy.
MW: We went Friday night, he went Saturday night with my friend who owns the wine shop and a group of people.
ES: Do you like Seattle?
MW: I’ve been to Seattle on tour a few times, but I never spent too much time there. The one other time I was there was when I was before the tour with Hellogoodbye and Paramore. We were there for a few days but I didn’t get to do much because we were prepping. This was the first time I was there enjoying it, eating, drinking, seeing the sights. It was really fun and a really great visit. I want to go back and do some hiking or go to Mount Rainier or some of the beaches.
ES: Come to Vancouver, we can show you a good time.
MW: I would love that. I’ve only been to Vancouver once, on that Hellogoodbye tour. It was at a weird arena that had a skatepark next to it.
ES: Do you miss being on tour?
MW: I do and I don’t.
ES: Fair.
MW: I think it was perfect when I was younger. I didn’t have too many attachments, I didn’t have dogs, I didn’t have a partner or a household that we’ve built together. If I were to do it now it would be under such different circumstances. It would probably be just as fun but I don’t think it would be the same. I was more careless and frivolous with my expenses then and just really went after it. Now, it would be more controlled.
But I do miss it, I miss the camaraderie. I miss touring with The Wonder Years and hanging out with those dudes. The little adventures and restaurants and things we’d do on tour. But I also know their tours are a lot more reserved now. They have families. It’s just different. I’d rather just be home with my family and travel with them.
ES: How did you meet The Wonder Years?
MW: It’s a story for sure. One of my best friends growing up was Jimmy Glaros, and he was obsessed with The Wonder Years. He loved Get Stoked On It! and had come across Won’t Be Pathetic Forever and he showed me it. I got into it. The band was on tour with Fireworks and they had an off day between Detroit and Ohio, and I remember looking on their MySpace and finding Soupy’s AIM screen name. I messaged him “Hey do you want to play an off-day show at my house?” Basically saying we could do a house show and that they could crash in my living room, we’d provide beer and food and whatever else they needed.
I had never thrown a house show before. In my mind, I thought the bands could play in the backyard on this patch of driveway that I had and it would be fine. I put my friend’s band, No One’s Anthem, on the show, my hardcore band, and then I Call Fives and The Wonder Years. We got it all figured out, and I told Jimmy “For my birthday, I’m getting you a show from the Wonder Years.” He was like “What??”
No One’s Anthem plays, and within 20 minutes the cops come. Laughs. Soupy was like “I don’t think we can play, I don’t know if this is gonna work. Can we play in the house?” But there was all this stuff in there, so instead, we had this bonfire pit in the backyard and all of these old couches and we waited until the sun went down. We had a bonfire and I Call Fives and The Wonder Years played acoustic.
ES: I feel like it takes a lot of confidence to message a band and ask them to play at your house.
MW: Laughs. At that time, the hardcore band I was in was playing basically every local show. We were the bigger local opener for most touring shows. We played with Ceremony, with Have Heart. So many bands.
ES: Comeback Kid?
MW: I wish we could have. They were a little too big for us, but we played with Misery Signals, Living With Lions—basically every band from that era, from late ‘06 to ‘08.
ES: This is kind of blowing my mind. I didn’t even know you played in bands.
MW: Yeah we were called Set Sail. We were playing all these shows, and I was going to basically every concert to take photos. I didn’t feel out of place messaging a band randomly.
ES: Was photography a way to get to network and get to know people?
MW: Yeah. It was definitely part of it. I always knew I wanted to be in a band. I was 13 and going to hardcore shows in Detroit and going on tour. Photography was an extension of that. Instead of attending the show I was documenting the show and documenting the scene and what was going on. As my passion for being in the band grew, my passion for photography had also grown. It made me more confident. I had something to offer.
ES: What was your first concert?
MW: It was in 1994. The Garth Brooks World Tour. My mom took me. I still have the T-shirts.
ES: I’m picturing them in the closet next to the pink studded belt or classic bullet belt from ‘02.
MW: Luckily I missed a lot of that but there was a period where I really enjoyed the scene and embraced some of the interesting fashion choices. I remember wearing T-shirts that were way too small and a pink shoelace choker. Laughs. And being super into bands like The Blood Brothers or The Black Daliah Murders or American Nightmare or Ceremony. I was just listening to everything.
ES: I gotta say, I’m feeling a little envious. You were the right age to be really in the mix when all of this was happening.
MW: It was kismet that I was born when I was and that I was as curious as I was. On top of that, my parents loved music and that sort of pushed me to be exploratory, of finding everything I could. We had very different music tastes but at the same time, I got that bug from them and that just pushed me. It was also such a different time. I didn’t have a cell phone or anything that tethered me to be responsible as a kid. I told my mom recently “Remember when I would go stay at my friend’s house for the weekend? I was actually going to Detroit to see shows all weekend, or my friend’s band was playing in Wisconsin so I would just get in the van and go.” She was like “Oh,” but I was super adamant about not smoking and not drinking and not doing drugs so she had no reason not to trust me.
ES: Are you still straight-edge?
MW: Uh, no. Laughs. I saw this thing on The Hard Times the other day that said “Aging Punk Becoming Accidentally Straight-Edge” and it’s not wrong. My job now is very demanding. I need to show up for my team so I can’t come in hungover. I don’t want to waste that time. My partner and I have quit drinking. We still smoke weed here and there, but we’re in a space where we don’t need to do it as much.
ES: So when we go out what are we drinking? Tap water? Diet Coke?
MW: We love a bottle of sparkling water, we love some bubbles. Or if they have a good non-alcoholic beer option we’re always interested in that. There’s this Brooklyn-based company called St. Agrestis that does a non-alcoholic negroni and amaro. If a restaurant has that we’ll get one and have that with our meal.
ES: I don’t really drink anymore either, but my parents were asking me if I’d ever consider non-alcoholic beer and I was like “Ew, no. Why would I want to drink beer if I can’t get fucked up?”
MW: Laughs. Before I stopped drinking I felt the same way. What’s the point? But now, there’s something really lovely about having a flavoured beverage that’s similar to a nightcap. Something to wind down with, or that you can have at a barbecue with friends… To have that option is nice.
ES: I definitely prefer the feeling of being plugged in. I had one beer to celebrate my new job this week, which I never do, but it’s not like “Let me get more of that delicious taste in my mouth.”
MW: It’s something with getting older. I remember my dad giving me a taste of beer when I was a kid and thinking “Oh, that’s fucking gross.” But now it’s like “Oh, that’s fucking gross – but I kind of like it.”
ES: It’s gross but in a nice way… I like the idea of reserving drinking for special occasions. I know so many people who go home and have a beer in the middle of the week and that doesn’t work for me personally.
MW: I feel that. It’s funny because I run the wine program at our office because I have friends who are plugged into the beverage and wine scene here in New York. My friend Brendan and a few of the other people in the neighbourhood who run Three Kings Tattoo own a wine shop called Parlour. They’re the ones who opened the wine bar out in Seattle. And I let them curate it. Like, why wouldn’t I want my friends to work with my job? Everybody wins, the people in my office get to drink nice wines and my friends get to continue their business…
ES: How did you meet Dave Mackinder from Fireworks? Was that a Michigan connection?
MW: Dave used to play in a band called Half The Battle in Michigan. Kyle [O’Neil] from Fireworks also used to play in it. Dave and I were around each other but weren’t ever super close. My hardcore band played a Christmas show with them once. We were friendly.
When I moved to L.A., the first month I was there, I was living on my friend’s couch. They had a house and I was there for a month or so. Fireworks were recording their first LP in L.A. at the same time and also staying there. I spent a lot of time with their guitarist Chris Mojan and their original drummer, Tymm, and Kyle. They’d be in and out of L.A. and I would go on mini-tours with them or go see them when they played Chain Reaction.
But it wasn’t until Dave moved to New York that we became close. I had been living here for a few years. He had started seeing someone and was staying with her. We’d get coffee and chat. And then he and his girlfriend broke up. He needed a place to stay and he wound up living in my apartment on my couch for like a year.
ES: What’s Dave like as a roommate?
MW: He’s great. Easy-going. Likes to have coffee in the morning. He’s quiet. We were both freelancing. I’d be shooting, doing production assistant work or photo assistant work and he’d be doing the same. We’re very similar so we’d get up in the morning and go get coffee. Grab a snack. Hang out. Do our separate things and then go to the bar or go get dinner. Hang out all night.
ES: That sounds amazing. You mentioned earlier that you’re busy with work and having all this responsibility. What do you do to de-stress at this point? Is it just music? Are you swinging some kettlebells?
MW: Laughs. I mean, honestly, I have a few things. Watching TV and movies for me is a big thing. I really love riding my bike. I ride to and from the office, it’s about 30 minutes or so, and it’s the time of my day when I don’t really have any responsibilities to anyone else. I just need to get from Point A to Point B. It allows me to think through the day, or forget it. I can listen to new records. Sometimes I’ll take the long way home to make it through a record or podcast. I go to SoulCycle and walk my dogs a lot.
I also love scanning negatives. It takes me a while to work up the motivation because it feels like work. But once I’m doing it I’m not thinking about anything else that’s happening. It’s just what I’m working on in that moment, which is really helpful.
ES: The hardcore to SoulCycle pipeline is real and something we are not talking about nearly enough.
MW: I think it’s just getting older. Everybody is realizing they can’t jump as much as they used to. I’m not moshing at shows anymore. I’ll get in the pit at smaller shows to try and get photos but I’m not looking to get punched in the face. Teeth are expensive.
ES: I know we’re past an hour but I was wondering what your perspective is on life and death?
MW: So to start, and I think this really lends itself to why I am the way I am… Growing up, when I was 10, I was scalped in a car accident. There’s a scar that goes across my forehead. It was just like *woosh*.
ES: Bro. That’s fucking crazy.
MW: We were hit head-on by a drunk driver on a Memorial Day weekend. I was laying my head on the dashboard and I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt properly. I had the shoulder strap behind me. I was kid, you know? And I should’ve died. I didn’t but it’s one of those things where I was conscious the entire time. I remember vivid moments of seeing myself in the rearview mirror. And I think that having this near-death experience at an early age and walking away from it unscathed, makes it feel like everything I’m doing is on borrowed time. It feels like a bonus, regardless of how strenuous or shitty or how much I may not feel like doing something. It’s like “I get to do this, this is sick.”
When I was younger I was a little more arrogant and egotistical. Like, “I’m going to do this because I want to do it.” But I feel like it’s exciting to be in this world at such a point in time that you get to make a mark and do something. Regardless of if it’s making art or making something for public consumption. I dunno, I’m getting a bit existential but what I’m saying is life is exciting and you only get to be a part of it once, so why not make the most out of it?
ES: Do you think that when we die, that’s it?
WJ: I don’t know. It feels like it, but prove me wrong.
ES: You’re open to anything.
WJ: I’m open to it. I’m not religious, and I’m very against organized religion, but at the same time who knows what’s going to happen? But we are going to die, so we might as well show up. Do what you can. I’m so lucky to have had a career that allows me to just be an artist and take pictures of my friends. To help them grow, to document this. I have a great partner and two awesome dogs and that’s sick.
Mitchell Wojcik is a photographer and line producer. He lives in Brooklyn.