In a dimly lit venue in Los Angeles, a flurry of color and grain comes to life. Onstage, an artist leaps into the spotlight while in the photo pit, Emily Entz raises her camera. Her lens captures more than motion; it captures memories.

To many in the music world, she’s known as Em1Wee, a 25-year-old concert photographer and creative director with a signature style: heavy contrast, layered textures and a refusal to follow the industry’s trends. Yet, behind the bold visuals lies something quieter and more enduring – grief.

“I see my photography as a way to keep her updated,” Entz said of her late mother, Sherry Anne Entz. “It’s like, this is who I’m with, this is what I look like, this is what I’m into now. It helps. It’s my way of sharing life with her.”

In recent years, Entz has become one of the most inventive young visual artists in the live music scene. She toured with indie darling Zinadelphia, capturing the sweaty intimacy of crowds and the quiet of soundchecks. She has created campaigns and photo shoots for Olivia O’Brien, Kid Bloom and Emmy Hartman, each time channeling chaos into warped lighting, washed-out contrast and surreal VHS-like textures.

Entz was eight years old when she lost her mother to ovarian cancer. The memory remains vivid, not just of the moment itself but of the presence that preceded it.

“My mom was kind of the life of the party but in an unexpected way,” Entz said. “She was really selfless, really honest and always there for people. She was my biggest hypewoman ever.”

Her cousin, Cameron Valle, remembers Entz’s mother even more intimately.

Valle recollects the sound of her voice and the little phrases she used to say. Sherry always drove a minivan and had thick black hair, usually clipped up in a simple style that reminded Valle of Emily’s. What stood out most was her thoughtfulness; Valle said Sherry had a way of remembering even the smallest things people mentioned, a trait Valle believes Emily inherited.

Entz’s childhood was soaked in color, movement and the soundtracks of early 2000s pop culture.

“I’d be sitting in her car while she drove me to swim lessons and those were the CDs she had; old ‘Hannah Montana,’ ‘High School Musical,’” Entz said. “I remember she’d say Troy Bolton was cute, and I’d be embarrassed. She’d be like, ‘One day you’ll get it.’ That was our common ground.”

Her first friend, Sophia Kaloustian, remembers meeting Entz on their very first day of kindergarten. Kaloustian recalls Entz wailing while clinging onto her mom.

“That moment is burned into my mind because it’s tied to her mom, Sherry, in such a sweet and heartbreaking way,” Kaloustian said.

From the start, Entz and her mother’s relationship stood out for its overflowing mug of love. Then, photography became more than an artistic outlet for her; it became a coping mechanism.

“It’s kind of an ongoing process,” she said of her grief. “I don’t think I’ve fully figured it out. It still haunts me in a way.”

Entz said she had not thought of death until her mother’s passing, questioning why a child would.

However, Entz doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff. She faces it with light and color, explaining that the only way to survive grief is to “face it.” Photography helps her process what feels too painful to put into words. “It helps me share the parts of life she missed,” Entz said.

There’s a tenderness in her process that echoes her mother.

“The way I dress people up, I think she’d get that right away,” Entz said. “She’d remember me dressing up as a kid, putting on makeup, acting silly. She’d recognize that in my photos, the playful theatrical side.”

Valle sees that inheritance, too, saying, “We talk about what our lives would be like if she were still here. And if she had liked us as adults. It makes me emotional. But I think that energy – of showing up, being intentional – it’s there in Emily.”

At the heart of everything she creates is a single truth: she photographs to remember and to resist forgetting. Her lens is a time machine; moving between moments, resurrecting what was lost, reframing what might’ve gone unseen.

“I think I’ve been archiving my whole life,” Entz said. “Even before I had a camera. I was always collecting mementos, always collecting memories, always collecting.”

That instinct to preserve and honor flows through every image she makes. Her photos prioritize presence over perfection, capturing what’s fleeting and remembering what’s lost. Entz bends light and memory into something raw and human, shooting as if someone should still be watching. Even in her absence, her work offers a glimpse, a gesture, a continuation.

Emily Entz doesn’t just photograph concerts – she builds memories from scratch. She captures what time and sickness try to take; from her, from all of us. In every frame, there’s a shimmer of someone who should be there. Who would have been proud? Who still somehow is.