February 2, 2016

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about the past. As I said before, I used to think about things from the past, things I did. You know, I was on my back in the hospital for a long long time.

I'm gonna call this blog, "Wind River, A Shotgun, and The Pool Shark." Let's start with Wind River:

For many years my father promised me a camping trip. This was since I was about eight years old. He finally came through when I was, well, 48. Better late than never, right? Anyway, we were on a horseback riding trip, a two week trip up into the Wyoming Rockies. We were one week into the trip. We stopped for lunch. I grabbed my lunch and went off to eat on my own. I sat down to eat my sandwich when all of a sudden all these squirrel, chipmunks and birds were surrounding me. I gave them my food. They were totally tame. They weren't scared of me at all. It was pretty cool. I felt like Dr. Doolittle. It was an amazing experience. No one ever goes where we were. Thank God no bear wanted something to eat - Like me!

Now let's talk about the Shotgun: In a previous blog, I think I told you, I ran across the country with eleven other guys. It was a relay run. I was on my leg of the relay, running through the Appalachian mountains. Now imagine this, I was running at about 3:30 in the morning with a flashlight and baton. The van we had was up the road waiting for me. I heard a noise. I looked over my right shoulder. There was a pick up truck with no lights on. The driver had a shot gun cradled in his arms while he was driving. The shotgun was pointed in my general direction. I didn't know what to do. I just said, "Hi! Just running across America." And the guy drove off. That was kind of weird. It was like a scene out of the movie Easy Rider...

And finally, we'll talk about the Pool Shark: As I said before, I've had many ex's, ex-girlfriends, a few ex-wives, a few ex-friends. One of my ex-girlfriends was a pool shark. Now get this, it's about the 70's right? She always wore Frye boots, tight Jordache jeans, a blousey top, bleached blond hair that was frizzy and shoulder length, a pretty girl who was petit, but smoked like a chimney. She smoked Marlboro lights - which I never got. What does that mean? It kills you lightly? Anyway, we would go to a dive and we would put our quarter down on the rail of a pool table, you know a cue line of who plays next. We would put $10 under our quarter, which meant we wanted play against someone for ten bucks. Some guy would always see her putting the $10 down and challenge her. They probably thought she was an easy mark. Well, she would pretty much clear the table on the first go. The guy who played against her never knew what hit him. She would then buy us beers with the money she won. I held her cigarette. Nice date. Right?

That's it for now. Hope you guys have a great week. Love and miss you guys, B. Nice

Also, check out my other blog about the Present.

January 29, 2016

Hi everybody. Welcome to the blog where I talk about the past.

Oh man! Traveling was, well, not so fun. I used to be on the plane almost every week. One time before 9/11, I was in Mexico coming back to New York. I had purchased a gallon of tequila from a local farmer. The security at the airport in Mexico asked me what I was doing with a gallon of liquid. I said it was tequila. They all laughed and said, "OK, drink some." So I proceeded to take a large, fiery gulp. They then said, "Drink some more." They laughed and I took another gulp. They laughed some more and said, "Why don't you take another drink?" I did it. They laughed again and let me through.

Another reason why I say it was a nightmare is because I shot film and they had to inspect each roll. No, they didn't pull apart each roll, but they had to swipe it for explosives. I pulled up a chair and it usually took about two hours to swipe each roll. I had usually around 1500 rolls from a shoot. It was not fun, but they kept us safe so I didn't mind.

One other time I was up against a flight attendant who really had a grudge against photographers. She wouldn't let me on with my camera bag. So I said, "All right. How about if I wear my camera? Is that all right?" she said, "Yeah." So I pulled out all five cameras, put all my lenses on them. I looked like a Japanese tourist. It was probably not very safe, but I checked my empty camera bag to go below. I had a very uncomfortable plane ride home.

I'll leave it at that for now. I did get to see some amazing things. Although, the plane just turned into a, well, bus ride. Not so glamorous, like it used to be. Talk to you next week. Here's my link about the present. Love, B. Nice

January 22, 2016

Hi you guys. Welcome to the blog where I talk about the past.

Having a traumatic brain injury has made me realize a lot of things. I've discovered a lot of things about the past. I think a lot of things I've done in the past have related to traumatic brain injury. For example, I used to get migraines a lot. Migraines are a form of epilepsy. I never knew this before. I also have seizures right now. A lot of things that have happened to me were probably small seizures. For example, one time I was surfing and I thought I hit my head on a rock, but I actually had a small seizure. You'll see, you'll discover a lot about the past and you'll think about it and how it relates to your present.

OK, enough of all this depressing stuff. I will share with you one thing that's totally unrelated, but, in my business, fashion photography, I used to always blame my agent for everything. You know, not working enough. Not working for the right people, etc., etc. But bottom line is, you've got to look at yourself. For example, work started to drop off for me and I immediately started to blame my agent. When in reality, I stopped doing so much editorial, I just took on jobs to make money. That only lasted so long. This was before my event, my traumatic brain injury. I used to work a lot. Just recently I started archiving all my images. I really realize I did a lot of editorial in the 90's. Then I did a lot of money work right after. Just verifies what I was just talking about. The 90's was definitely a great time to be traveling the world on photographies dime. Good times.

Check out my other blog where I talk about the present. I don't have any other stories to tell right now. Have a good week. Love, B. Nice

January 18, 2016

Hi my friends!

 

Hey, come and check out the film we all did (an Adam & Erin Hall film). It's in a film festival. I'd love it if you came. Also, tell all your friends. Let's fill the house!

 

Love,

B. Nice

 

P.S. It's easy to get there by subway. I think it's on the 4 and 6 line, but google it anyway.

 

 

The Bronx International Film Festival Wednesday January 27 at 7pm

Lehman College

The Studio Theater

250 Bedford Park Blvd W

New York, NY 10468

Tickets: http://bronxstage.com/offset/

Brian D. Nice

www.briannice.com

briannice@me.com

January 9, 2016

Hi you guys. Welcome to my blog where I talk about the past. I would think about stories to get me through the day.

Oh man, this one time, I was doing this photographic shoot on the west coast. This was around 1995. Anyway, it was during like an El Nino storm. There was some big surf pushing up from the south. Big waves. We stopped our shoot to watch these crazy surfers ride big swell up almost to the cliff face. The surfers would pull out of the wave just before they hit the cliff. This was near La Jolla. South of LA. This one surfer got pushed under and disappeared. Everyone wrote him off as dead. The helicopters came in, the police rescue boats. No one could find him. And then all of a sudden there was a bunch of commotion at a sea shell shop just down the street. Now, get this: apparently the surfer I was talking about got pushed down and into a cave. He swam up into an air pocket and noticed some steps. He swam to the steps. Walked up the stairs and there was a door. Now, cut to this: there's a bunch of people in the sea shell store and they hear a knock behind an old painting. The owner of the store cleared away all these old paintings and sees a door. He opens the old door and there he is, the surfer, all cut up and bloody but alive. Apparently, the old door lead to the stairs that went down into the cave. It was an old tourist attraction that had been boarded up. Crazy right?

On our shoots, there were always crazy little situations we would be involved in. One time I was in Malibu, in California. I was shooting with the sun behind the model. All of a sudden I noticed what was like a snow flake fall in front of her. Then there was another and another and pretty soon I couldn't shoot because she was covered in what looked like snow. It turned out to be ashes from a fire. There was a huge fire coming over the ridge. We barely got out of there, it all happened so fast.

Just another exciting day in the world of fashion photography.

I'll tell you one more story. One time I was in Utah doing a photographic shoot near Los Alamos. The model was standing on a porch. I told a joke. She started laughing. All of a sudden we heard a bunch of coyotes howling and sounded like laughing coming out of the treeline right behind me. Never a dull moment. I went in the van and checked my shorts.

I'll tell you guys some more stories later. Go to my other blog. The blog about the present. Check it out. This is B. Nice signing off. Love you. Talk to you next week. Love, B. Nice