NIGHTED Life Introduces: Mario Zoots
Who are you?
My name is Mario Zoots. I make collage and take photographs daily mostly snapping on my Yashica T4 and Nikon F3. I’m a graffiti punk since 1996, I rep dirty thirty and side walk surfers. All cops are bastards forever. I’m from west Denver but I travel far and wide writing on things and taking pictures of our filthy america. I like rap music and red meat.
What do you look for, if anything, when taking photos?
I look for the unusual and out of place in mostly urban environments. I am intrigued by finding and documenting youth culture, drug culture and crime in general. I look for the adventure, I like to get to get lost in cities, taking a wrong turn down an opposite street can be rewarding - finding some crazy ass people or weird shit just poppin off on the streets. I’ve ended up in some sticky situations more than once with this formula.
When was the last time you witnessed something unexplainable?
Fucking around in train yards like the Pepsi yard in Denver can be wild. Chatting with dudes shootin up heroin behind warehouses or huffin spray paint under the 6th avenue bridge. Those dudes that huff paint under the bridge are crazy, they’ll be hallucinating trying to steal your paint and throwing glass bottles at the trains.
Where is your favorite place to be?
In the moment. 100% immersed in the situation at hand. No dwelling in the past or future, right here, right now, always.
Why do you live the way you do?
Life’s too short.