Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about the past. I'm currently talking to you from my bed. I awoke from my nap and, well, I feel like shit. You see, some days are great, and some days, not so great. For example: today, I shake a lot. For some reason I shake a lot. A friend of mine came over and he was talking to me. He said, "What's with the shaking?" I said, "Well, if some doctors drilled into your spine, drained the fluid from your spine and skull and then drilled into your skull and operated on your brain, why, you'd shake too." But, that's a whole nother story. Let's talk about the past. We'll call this blog: Noah's Ark, Three Models, and My Favorite Bar. And, oh yes, some kangaroo skin.
OK, I'll talk about Noah's Ark. A producer friend of mine was laughing at me because she called my set, Noah's Ark. You see, you have to get your Photo under any conditions. Even if it means it's really rainy and really windy, there's no excuses. So I had a little trick. I would build a box around the model and shoot toward the water with a long lens. The photo always looked like the background was sunny and blue. (This is an old photographer's trick, well before Photoshop.) Anyway, we were having lunch and the tide came in and took away my set. It just floated out to see. It was kind of funny. We went to the movies for the rest of the day.
The Three Models, well, every time I got on the plane going to my location, I would sit next to the model, to get to know her. I mean, I'd be working with her for the next week, so it's good to get to know them. The three girls I'm referring to that stick out in my mind. One girl I started talking to her, just broke up with her fiancé. Oh my gosh. She was a mess. I thought , Great, I gotta work with her for a week. The girl looked like a deer in the headlights for every shot. Another girl I worked with was tough. I mean, she was like hardcore. There was some guy that sat down next to her, tried to chat her up. She was having nothing to do with it. She looked at him and just put up her hand and said, "Yo, I know where you're going with this, but you're wasting your time. I'm here talking with my friend, so don't talk to me." I thought it was a bit extreme, but it worked. I also asked her if I could hire her out. I could use that kind of language sometimes. Another girl that I didn't work with, but who sat with me, was a model for Playboy. The guy on the aisle she was by was my hair dresser. He kept talking to her. She introduced herself to us as Miss June. I talked to you about this before. Anyway, my hairdresser got so drunk at our destination, he just kept yelling "June June" and was following her everywhere, because she was staying where we were staying. One night he got so drunk, our model from our shoot showed up at his room for hair & make up. He opened the door, said you look great, and slammed the door shut. When she showed up at the shoot, I said to her, "What's with your hair? What didn't happen to your hair."
I shot in the Bahamas a lot. In fact, there was one particular island I would go to all the time. I went there so much, even the locals who lived there thought I had a house there. Anyway, there was always great light in the end of the day on this one particular street I knew. My favorite bar just happened to be on that street as well. Toward the end of the day, I would say to my client, "Hey! I know that bar, they have great pina colada's. Let's finish the shoot around there." Hey, it kept everyone happy. There was great reggae music, great pina colada and really good fish tacos. A great way to end the day. Oh yeah, and there was a parrott there too, who could talk. Maybe too much.
Now I'll talk about the kangaroo skin. You see, I used to live in Australia. When I lived there it was hard to get a lot of photographing things I needed. For example, I needed to get some new portfolios made. There was nowhere they could make the type of portfolios I needed, so I had to start from scratch and show a bookmaker how to do it. Well, the first thing I needed to do was to get some leather. I ended up in some old warehouse that sold leather skins. They brought me out all sorts of skins like kangaroo, cow, water buffalo, ostrich, emu, it was all a bit strange, but I learned a lot about leather. I actually ended up with water buffalo skin. It's actually great leather. Who would ever imagine.
Anyway, that's it for this week. Here's my link where I talk about the present. This is B. Nice signing off.
Love, B. Nice
P.S. Oh yeah, I wanted to give you guys the link I have for the film I did with Adam and Erin Hall. It will be showing at the Alexandria Film Festival in Alexandria, VA. Here are the details. Go if you can.
