kelly mason

“post your profile pic” -absolutely no one second photo is how i feel about the new @poolkidsband album announcement!! glamour shots from a very fun afternoon frolicking in my ‘hood with @camilleisisgermain 🤩

@mychemicalromance in seattle on the first night of the long live the black parade tour. with the most dedicated sleep-deprived fans on barricade 🫡 covered for @rocksound . thanks @sarinasolem for the referral on this one! the itch for more stadium gigs grows stronger. #mychemicalromance #theblackparade

@culturewars kicked off their tour with a sold out performance at @thecrocodileseattle last night and told the crowd it was the biggest headline show they’d ever played. i have a feeling they’ll be saying this a lot over the next couple of months. rock music is coming back to life again, y’all. finally. thanks to the band and my longtime friend @nsirotta with @impulseartists for the opportunity!

I adopted Bigglesworth in 2013, when I was 24 and living in New York. I first saw him while window shopping at the Union Square Petco, then two weeks later I came back and he was still there. He was a street cat with no personality description on his enclosure nor interest in human interaction. A real wildcard. He was spicy from being in a cage for so long, but I knew he was the one for me. They say you’re supposed to introduce cats to a new space by starting them in the bathroom, but Bigglesworth was not a normal cat. As soon as we got home, he completely transformed. My Brooklyn apartment became his domain, and he explored every surface with no hesitation. You could tell he was a New York City street cat who had seen some shit. He was unphased by everything but car rides and the vacuum. Biggs loved pets. As in, you could pet him continuously for the rest of eternity and he’d never get tired of it. He also loved being outside, but he never went far. He was happy 10 feet from the door in his little spot by the rosemary bush. I always said that he was grateful to not live on the streets anymore. He came when he was called and knew how to greet a guest by rolling around in front of their feet and showing his belly. He loved a good belly rub, too. This cat moved across the country with me three times, outlasted numerous relationships and life stages, and was such a healthy boy that for a long time he seemed invincible. Earlier this year he started having health problems, but I didn’t expect it to end like this. After three days of vet visits they found a mass that explained his sudden downturn, and only one decision felt like the right one. I am devastated and still having a hard time picking up the pieces. Words will never express how much I loved this sweet boy. I’m so thankful he was my companion from 24-37, and even though the end was abrupt, I’m relieved that he wasn’t in pain for long. Thank you, Mr. Bigglesworth, for showing me that a cat can be your best buddy. Also thankful that @camilleisisgermain took the first two photos of us together last year. @joshuakirb_ on the one of us in the garden.

unfortunately this is further validation that my most unhinged writing leads to positive outcomes. thanks to @rkelly5000 for helping me lean into the bit by inviting me to sell merch at @afireinside last week in seattle. i made this silly little green screen video as a joke and know the caption is illegible in full screen mode, but who cares full send!!

it only took 20 years of being a photographer to get over my fear of printing and showing my work. exposure therapy is real, y’all. you can say what’s up to this print at the three tree point location of @qedcoffee . and if you want to buy a copy for yourself, slide into my DMs!

my @initiate_hc initiation. the wonder years always bring out the coolest openers. (technical sidebar: one day i will master negating light banding with the R6. this was apparently not that day.)

picture this: i’m at four chord festival with alkaline trio. a higher power summons me back to our bus. my nose is in my phone, writing an urgent text. i briefly look up and am struck by what appears to be jesus christ. wait no, it’s davey havok. he’s just stepped out of the festival-provided shuttle, but i’m almost positive he appeared through a cloud of smoke. i quickly look away, as if this 2-second blip in my life won’t be permanently seared into my brain stem. i finish my text message. later that night, AFI takes the stage. i’m transported back to 8th grade, when sing the sorrow rearranged my DNA and i learned how to apply black eyeliner for the first time. all i can think about is davey havok at 14 singing “i wanna get a mohawk (but mom won’t let me get one).” they do not play that song. the end.

my @motioncitysoundtrack tour print shop is finally live ~for a limited time!~ comment ‘mcs’ and robot me will DM it over 🤖 (link is also in my bio) ✨ through 3/30, orders over $100 will receive a free 8x10 using code FREE8X10 ✨ (yes i was feeling very creative when making that one) there are photos from every stop of tour — probably too many, but what else is new? — including tons of crowd and barricade moments. message me if you have specific requests. looking through these photos again brought me a lot of joy. i just love these guys so much. the best group of humans 🥹

filmed in atlanta then never finished editing because i was too busy making cuts of matt & josh staring longingly at each other from across the stage. now i’m back home learning stained glass and plotting what life looks like this year. more from me very soon!

the impossible 2025 recap post! finally. there are so many photos/videos/memories i want to share and not enough space for them all. i tried extra hard this (last?) year to take more photos with friends even though most of the time we yapped too much to remember. here are some of the good things that happened, omitting all of the bad/weird/low moments because i’m trying out this new thing called “discretion.” 🤘 was featured in my first local photo show with three other rad photographers, igniting my love for printing my work (ty @travistrautt for showing me the way of the fine art print and twy/baloni for letting me take my lil print shop on tour)
 🫆 sold 195 prints after a lifetime of never thinking i was good enough for my work to take up space in the physical world 🚌 traveled to 30 different states with @thewonderyearsband @alkaline_trio and @motioncitysoundtrack , touring more in one year than ever in my life 🚗 went to disneyland twice, deciding the idea of being a disney adult is actually kinda sick 🍕 took hundreds of photos and videos of pizza for @steviesfamous and @lupofremont and briefly considered a new career path of restaurant marketing before touring took over (an option still not entirely off the table, as i still live to feed) 👹 had my 2025 version of the beanie babies craze moment and became the proud owner of five (5) labubus and one (1) lafufu after @baloni mistakenly praised me for not knowing what a Labubu was and sending me down a rabbit hole 🍴ate all over the country with @mattfromky and even tried the famous @gordongram beef wellington 👯‍♀️ danced my face off with @kotakiraofficial and friends ✍️ finished the bottom half of my leg tats with the help of @dylonmunoztattoo @innerpunk and @dmuggg honestly i need to stop there or i’ll never post this. here’s to 2026 and showing up late instead of not at all! first 📸 by @camilleisisgermain who came over and spent the afternoon taking the best photos of me ever and changed my perception of myself for the rest of eternity 🥰

my favorite live music photos are always the ones that feel deliberate. i think that’s why i love double exposures so much: they force me to think critically about what i’m looking at because the images are captured back-to-back. in a world of burst mode and infinite memory card space, there’s nothing more powerful than intentionally slowing down. when i can look at what’s happening in front of me beyond the surface level, anticipate a moment, and create what i see in my mind with the press of a button, it compels me to fully live in the present instead of letting overthinking take over. photography is one of the only things in the world that does this for me other than board sports (where if i stop thinking about what i’m doing for even a second i *will* eat shit). i believe that’s why i’ve been shooting shows for over 20 years with a passion for learning more and trying to get better that never wavers. (hello video???) i appreciate anyone who has ever trusted me to photograph you or your band or take me on tour, the ones who follow along in support, and especially the messages i get every so often that tell me i’ve inspired you or someone you know to pick up a camera. enough of my blathering! here are a bunch of intentional moments from my time with the legends in @motioncitysoundtrack !