This month we feature moepics.com. Tim Murray and Nick Sullivan have this to say about the site (mostly in the third person…
Since its inception, moe. has always been void of an ‘official’
concert photography policy. But basically, the ‘unofficial’ policy has
always been that if you choose to take pictures at the show, just make
sure that you don’t disturb anyone else and to never use a flash. With
those ground rules set out, moe.rons everywhere have been taking
pictures at shows for years now and other than personal photo albums or
one-off sites here and there online, there was not a central place where
fans could upload and share their own pictures.
moepics.com was initially thought up by Tim Murray as a way to share his
mounting pile of pictures taken at shows over the years; however, the
idea quickly evolved into a site where anyone could have the opportunity
to share their own pictures as well. The next step was registering the URL,
which was the easy part. Once word had gotten out that the site was ‘in
the works’, various moe.rons started asking about the plans, progress
(or lack thereof) and when it would be ready. By moe.down 2001, it had
gotten to the point that something needed to be done to show everyone
that this wasn’t just an idea that would never get off the ground. So
while in line for the band poster signing, Tim Murray and Nick Sullivan
started chatting about the project. It was quickly realized and decided
that Tim would handle the general design and layout of the site, and
Nick would handle all of the behind-the-scenes backend server and
database stuff (the real work). So it was settled, and moepics was
created in the weeks thereafter. Since then, it has served as a central depository for
moe. show pictures taken by anyone with the means to upload them and add
them to the site automatically.
Currently, there are over 3,100 pictures from 200 shows, representing 29
states and provinces, 89 cities and 148 venues. And these numbers are
growing steadily. moepics features a comprehensive search engine you
can search by show date, venue, city, state/province or photographer, or
just browse by year. And judging from the fact that we average over
300,000 hits and over 2GB of bandwidth per month, it is apparent that
this type of site was long overdue.