All Around Cowboy

A woman wearing a cowboy hat and red clothing, standing in a dimly lit bar or nightclub, looking at a display case covered with stickers.

A photo editorial for Mood Swing’s All Around Cowboy line, shot in a bar in Little Rock that has been running glive music since 1976. I directed it. Matt White, who has run the tavern and photographed hundreds of the musicians who’ve come through it, shot it.

You can’t fake a room like this one. The White Water Tavern is a juke joint Robert Palmer wrote up in the Times, that Lucero put in a song, that Esquire named one of the best bars in America. Levon Helm played it. Billy Bragg played it. There are ashes in a beer bottle on a shelf above the bar. The cedar walls hold every word that’s been sung inside them. For a lot of people this place is a totem: the artist, the sorrow, the loneliness, the heartbreak, the love, the perseverance, the beauty of their lives, all of it soaked into the wood. Matt wasn’t a hired camera. He was the room’s own memory, pointed at the clothes.

The concept was simple and I held it hard: no styling against the venue, only with it. Red on red under the purple wash. A hand on the jukebox instead of a pose. Bodies leaning into each other at the bar the way people actually lean at last call. The hand-stitched cowboy on the back of that jacket is the same figure the tavern has been putting on its stage for fifty years.

Creative direction for a brand is the same job as a room. Find the real thing, then get out of its way

A woman with long wavy brown hair wearing a white cowboy hat and a red T-shirt, sitting against a beige wall.
A young woman with long brown hair wearing a wide-brimmed beige hat and a red t-shirt sitting against a beige textured background.
A young man with light skin and brown hair, wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, a red T-shirt with a black graphic, and red pants, sits on a bar counter inside a dimly lit bar with fairy lights and framed posters on the wall behind him. Candles are on the bar and on the floor in front of him.
A young person with short brown hair, wearing a wide-brimmed beige hat and a beige oversized jacket and matching pants, stands in a dimly lit room with vintage posters and string lights in the background.
A person wearing a cream-colored, textured jacket with a black and white graphic of a woman on the back, black knee-high boots, and black shorts, standing at a bar with string lights and a bartender in the background.

All Around Cowboy, Mood Swing. Photographed by Matt White at the White Water Tavern, Little Rock, July 2024.

A woman standing with her back to the camera, wearing a cream-colored jacket with a graphic of a martial artist embroidered on the back, in a cozy, dimly lit bar with string lights overhead and a bartender in the background.
Two young women leaning their heads together in a cozy, dimly lit space decorated with string lights.
A woman with black hair and tattoos on her arm is sitting inside a vehicle, wearing a red shirt and making a facial expression. Another woman with brown hair is leaning on her shoulder, with her eyes closed. The photograph appears to be taken from the outside of the vehicle, focusing through the window.
A young woman with long wavy hair talking on a rotary phone inside a wooden bar or restaurant with string lights hanging from the ceiling.
A person with curly hair and tan skin standing in a room with purple lighting and string lights. They are wearing a sleeveless shirt with a printed image and orange pants. A disco ball hangs from the ceiling.
Person wearing a beige T-shirt with a black graphic of a cowboy riding a horse on the front, and matching beige pants with black stitching accents.