NYLON - March 2009 - (Page 62) contributors skye parrott New Yorkers are loyal to their city, but as photographer Skye Parrott admits, sometimes a little California sunshine can be quite persuasive. “We shot in January and it was 85 degrees in Los Angeles,” she says of her feature, “Go West,” on page 208. “When I came back to New York, it was 14 degrees!” One of Parrott’s all-time favorite projects was driving cross-country and shooting photos along the way, using her best friend as a model. “You aren’t allowed to take commercial pictures in Graceland, so we dressed her in an outfit and just took the tour,” she remembers. “Every time the group would turn a corner she’d pose and we’d snap some pictures really quickly.” And to think that Parrott’s original plan was to pursue a career as a lawyer. Luckily, a Parisian photo internship she had at age 22 sealed the deal. “Obviously, I never went back to school,” says Parrott. “So far, it seems to have worked out all right.” josette compton Josette Compton’s writing career launched at the ripe age of 10. “I was frustrated with the coverage of New Edition, Paula Abdul, and Salt-N-Pepa in Right On and Teen Bop,” says Compton. “That’s when I started my own magazine called The Children’s Enquirer.” Since pioneering her own media empire, Compton has gone on to write for Entertainment Weekly, Popmatters.com and the new online magazine, Human Nature. For her hip-hop roundup (“The New School,” page 160) Compton said she picked the artists based on originality and “overall dopeness.” A fan of hip-hop since middle school, Compton often feels nostalgia for the “fun, rebellious, smart, and creative” spirit of the early days. “Every now and then I’ll catch glimpses of it in new artists, and remember why I fell in love with it,” she says. When she’s not writing, Compton paints, dances, and “spends too much money at the few record stores left in New York City.” augusto giovanetti “A good conversation is a very powerful trigger,” says contributing artist Augusto Giovanetti. “It’s the kind of thing that makes you start the engines and want to go home and start sketching all your ideas like crazy.” If a meaningful conversation sparked the ideas for his illustrations in this issue (“Time to Pretend,” page 144) which includes images of horses, Rubik’s cubes, and rainbows, it’s one we sure wish we could have sat in on. A self-confessed music addict, Giovanetti spends his free time (should his roommate and boss allow) listening to music very loudly. He says he’s taken advantage of his creativity since he was a kid and attempts something new with each project. “I love every assignment that I’ve done, and I love the new ones even more,” he says. “When I finish, I feel that I can check something off my to-do list. Every project has something new to me that I wanted to try.” nisha gopalan “I knew I had to get into publishing when, at some point during my junior year in college, I looked around my apartment and realized it was littered with magazines,” says Nisha Gopalan, who has recently joined us as a Senior Editor. From that revelation, Gopalan went on to contribute to publications like The New York Times, Spin, and Entertainment Weekly. “During one of my early attempts dabbling in journalism, I landed my holy grail: Justine Frischmann, lead singer of Elastica,” she remembers. “I had such a girl-crush on her. In the interview, I asked every ridiculous question possible, but she answered each of them gamely.” When she’s not curating NYLON’s Radar section, Gopalan says she enjoys watching “obscene amounts of television” and reading. “My favorite thing to do is to read comic books while listening to new music in the background, on a lazy Sunday afternoon,” she says. “Nerding out, basically.” 062 http://www.Popmatters.com
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