NEW YORK, NY.- MAKiNG iT: an intimate documentary of the seattle indie, rock & punk scene, 19922008 by Bootsy Holler (Damiani Books, 2025) is a photographic time capsule and an emotional romp through the Seattle soundscape from 1992 to 2008. An avid fan of Seattles music scene during the late 1990s and early 2000s, photographer Bootsy Holler created a remarkable portfolio documenting the little-known bands who later defined a decade in music history as the world transitioned from celluloid to digital, grunge to indie.
As a young artist, Holler captured live gigs, band portraits, backstage moments, rapt audiences and more, chronicling the formative years of artists such as Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Interpol, Macklemore, Modest Mouse, Gossip, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, along with Beck, Foo Fighters-Dave Grohl, Moby, Pearl Jam, The Posies, and R.E.M.
I was documenting my life, said Holler. The musicians, promoters and bouncers were my friends, and I went to see bands I enjoyed and places I could get in for free. I didnt know I was in the middle of something new.
The book opens with a foreword from Megan Jasper, Sub Pop Records CEO for 25 years, who says about Holler, She didnt enter into the scene as the new kid finding her place. She came into it as an artist, a creative woman inspired by what she saw and felt.
A nostalgia trip for grunge and indie music fans, MAKiNG iT transcends the boundaries of music or a single life story. Turn the pages for memories of joyful sweaty nights, ringing ears, and the wonderful expressions on the faces of the movers and shakers that Bootsy brings back alive for us, writes photographer Charles Peterson in the introduction.
Bootsy Holler is a Los Angeles-based photographer with deep roots in the Pacific Northwest. Having grown up in Washington state and spent her 20s and 30s immersed in Seattles vibrant music scene, her work is a raw, personal chronicle of a generation trying to make it. Holler has long documented her own life as well as the lives unfolding around her especially where music, friends, family, and artists intersect.
Hollers fine artwork has appeared in galleries and publications worldwide. Her documentary music imagery includes a Pearl Jam photograph in the permanent collection of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, and Leica Gallery London exhibited MAKiNG iT in October 2024.