Archie Blu grew up in the concert scene, surrounded by girls who, like her, idolized the stereotypical indie boys that made headlines. Now, years later, she’s decided to take matters into her own hands with female recreations of famous photos of male musicians. The series is called #BeYourOwnIndieBoy and is a perfect example of women taking control of the narrative.

Archie first started the series on Twitter:

Made a fun lil foto series with my frans I met through traveling for the 1975. ♥️🔲‼️ pic.twitter.com/gw7gR77YnY

— BLU (@earthlycruel) April 7, 2019

I sat down with the artist to learn more about the indie project and her budding photography career.

Ariel Zedric: Could you tell me a little more about how you came up with this idea?

Archie Blu: I came up with this idea partly born out of my frustration with the highly male-dominated indie music scene. I thought about how a few years ago we unquestionably idolized these indie boys and the lack of gender diversity was largely ignored. Fast forward to now, in 2019, we’re seeing more of a push toward diversity. female indie music fans aren’t just fans anymore, they’ve grown up now and are killing it. We’re reclaiming the indie boy obsession. We’re “stanning” ourselves. We can easily be and accomplish who we idolized when we were young. We’re recreating the image of a male-dominated indie music scene and replacing it with traditionally female attributes. representation is important.

Talk me through the logistics! Was it hard finding matching clothing, or did you choose the pictures based on what you could find?

I first pulled a ton of images from Matty Healy, especially those that were popular a few years ago when my subjects and I were all stans of their band. Those images almost felt like they belonged to us, you know? Like we had them saved to our phones and retweeted them on twitter, we idolized that band. Recreating them in our own style felt powerful. I can be just as talented and impactful in what I do like the people I grew up idolizing. After I had a plethora of images pulled, basically when my friends and I would meet up before concerts I’d pull them out, and we would have a blast recreating the ones from the folder we were lucky enough to have the same shirt or glasses as. The truly hard work was in the editing process! Recreating lighting to be identical was hard!

I get pretty much all my visual inspiration from music. I mostly only work with musicians. I aspire to be a musician lifestyle photographer, or maybe tour with a band one day.

Do you have plans to continue the series? If so, who’s up next?

I already have continued the series! Matty Healy was just the start because I loved The 1975 the most, and let’s be real he’s the original Indie Boy for most of us. I started working with an incredible musician named Skela, we created a series called #BeYourOwnIndieBoy. I have shot her as Matty Healy, and Timothee Chalamet! As for who I’ll do next… it’s always a surprise!

Tell me about your passion for photography! What made you fall in love with it?

My passion for photography was born out of my fear of forgetting. I have always had a bad memory, and after growing up with head injuries in concert pits and a family with a history of Alzheimer’s, forgetting all the crazy, fun things I did when I was young terrified me. I started taking more pictures, documenting the music scene and all my friends I absolutely adored. It grew into a career, and I started photographing musicians!

What’s one thing outrageous thing you want to photograph, but haven’t yet?

A band’s tour!

What’s it like being a female in the photography/director world? Have you experienced any gender-related challenges?

Being female in any world, in general, comes with gender-related challenges. I try to make it a priority to shoot and work with mostly females. I love the idea of girls putting girls on. there’s this weird sexist idea out there at girls are competitive or catty with each other that is just not true. All my girls and I love each other. All female spaces are my favourite to occupy.