Jessie: It Has Nothing To Do With Snakes

Jessie, 19

A question I always ask people I am interviewing is “can you tell me about the day you got this tattoo?” Jessie’s response is BY FAR my favorite. This is the story behind the vintage medium format camera on her right shoulder.

When I asked said aforementioned question, Jessie’s face lit up and I knew what was to follow was going to be a great story. What followed was a story about…snake poop.

Jessie went to her friend’s older sisters friend, whom had previous experience in tattooing from working in a tattoo studio. Being welcomed into someone’s home, though, is a bit more of a grab bag than a studio.

“I’m sitting there and they have a lot of snakes. They had a lot of little ones in the house and a few big ones that are outside. When we first showed up Elliot (the artist’s partner) and his friends were sitting on the porch and the one dude said ‘it’s their poops day!’ and we are like ‘what do you mean?’ And they are like HUGE SNAKES, maybe like 5-6ft long and like thick. Apparently, a snake that big won’t eat that often and will poop once a week. It’s one day and it’s an entire event and it was their day. Apparently, you can tell by their mannerisms and the way they slink around when they're ready to poop.”

“She was doing the tattoo on me and I could literally see the snakes through the window and I was like ‘what is going on,’ and right after my tattoo was finished, Elliot was like ‘guys come outside, they’re ready.’ So that’s how I learned how snakes poop and got a tattoo that means a lot to me.”

The camera tattoo on Jessie’s right shoulder does have meaning beyond the fact that she had no prior knowledge on snake excretions.

“I started taking photos when I was 14 right after a huge change in my life and not living with my abuser anymore and taking photos was a way for me to understand the world and understand my place in the world. I started obsessively taking photos from the time I was 14 to 18, and then I went to art school and that summer before going to art school.

I wanted to get something to commemorate that time and show my love of photography and this huge passion that changed my life and brought me into the world.”