Why?

“The homie Jack McKain is an up-and-coming photographer and one of the people that I started with. At the same he had his magazine, Modern Hieroglyphics. Jack was always a dope film photographer but then when he really started going into the music photography scene it got elevated. Music is one of my biggest loves. I can't do anything without music. Seeing Jack's first book he put together of all these different musicians and artists that he's worked with is honestly absolutely stunning.

What is so inspiring about Jack's book to me is that he is my peer. We're about the same age and seeing somebody from my peer group with a collection of work like this, but also seeing his struggles and knowing everything that he's been through, I've connected with him so much on that. So I was really proud of him to see him do this and on top of that it's not even like a shameless plug, this shit is dope. It's really clean. And Jack's like this skinny white boy from Virginia, but he has such a beautiful collection of people of colors musicians that he's just a soulful brother and I really connected with that.

Stylistically what impacts me about his work is his framing and his attention to detail and texture. I always can refer to Jack's photos in the way that he texturizes his photos and then he has this kind of level to it so it gives me the confidence to know if he's scanning his photo like this with film, then I shouldn't have any qualms about doing this with my own kind of medium.”
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- Steve “Sweatpants” Irby, Photographer