April 1, 2021

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

Oh man, I had great parents. They were very cool. Life seemed to always be a big adventure with them. One specific time, I’ll tell you, was a trip we took for a couple of years. We took a steamship to England, stayed in the west wing of an estate, went to Paris, then lived in the South of France where my sister and I went to school. And then we went to Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iran, India, Australia, New Guinea, back to Australia where we went to school for a long time. And then, we went to New Zealand and back home. Each country I have a great story, but there’s not enough time to tell you. It’s probably where I got travel fever. I love to travel. Now I sit at home with my smelly dog and stare at the trees. I guess that’s another adventure.

Hey, guess what! I’m getting married! (April fools.)

That’s it for now. Love you guys.

Talk to you later.

Love, B. Nice

March 3, 2021

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my past. You know, before my brain injury.

Oh man! I used to love to shoot photographs with water. I used to love shooting on the water, underwater (when I was a scuba diver), underwater at night, at the edge of the water (day & night), in the waves, on boats, in the studio. It was great. Water always added an element of energy to a photograph. It was great. But I’ll tell you, there were some risks involved sometimes.

Once I was on an island called Palau near the Philippines. I had to photograph swimsuits on girls. So I put on my scuba equipment, sat on the bottom of the water and had the girls jump or dive from a sailboat into the water. The images were cool. But, the only problem was there were a lot of sharks. One time there was a lull in the diving off the boat. I was thinking to myself, “Where the hell’s the model?” And then I heard a tapping on the boat hull. I looked to my left and there was a big ass shark coming towards me. And when I said big, I mean BIG. It didn’t see me yet, so I tucked myself in amongst the coral and held my breath. The shark just cruised on by. It either didn’t see me or didn’t care. I got out of the water after that, let me tell you.

There are many incidents that happened, but I’ll tell you one more story. The photo assistant I had knew the lifesavers at North Bondi, in Australia. Well, I had the bright idea of asking the surf lifesavers if we could go out in the surf boat, you know the big wooden boat with the oars. The surf was big that day, but they didn’t mind having us on board, so they said, “Hop in mate.” The model was one of Australia’s leading fashion models so I was a little nervous taking her out. But she was on board, being a tough Australian girl. She said, “Let’s go.” Well we paddled out into the waves. It started out OK, but man, the waves were big. Looking back at it, I should have pulled back and shot it more like a photojournalistic moment, but I kept in close and concentrated on the model. I really didn’t think about what I should be doing because I was almost shitting in my pants. The waves were super big. Even scarier was riding the waves back in. We did this about three times and then I said, “OK, that’s enough.” It was a great adventure, but I’ll never do that again.

Oh yeah, I shot with an underwater camera. I have lots of other stories, but I’ll tell them to you later. Love you guys. Don’t forget to look at my blog where I talk about the present.

Love, B. Nice

February 17, 2021

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

The end of my career as a fashion photographer, I would just bring a 6X6 scrim jim set and a 4 ft X 8 ft piece of black felt. That’s all I needed because I would just use what’s around me. In other words, I would just adapt to what’s given to me. For example, if I was under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I would notice the bridge gives off a great shadow so I would use that to my advantage. Or, if I was in the open shade of a dormer, I would use that. You just have to spend the time and look around. You will start to notice there’s great light all around. You just have to look for it. I guess it’s kind of like how I am now. For sure, I’m pretty messed up, but I see things so differently than you guys, I use that to my advantage and take pictures of the world, how I see it. Hey, how many people have a dog with two heads, right? (Remember, I see double.)

Have a good week. Love, B. Nice

January 13, 2021

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

Oh man, I was watching this movie the other night and it reminded me of how I used to be. A free spirit. For example, when I lived in Paris, I’d get a phone call from my agent in Australia. If I chose to accept a booking they got, I’d fly to Australia from France. Life was always like that for me then. I’d go from France to New York City, and then to Mexico. I remember one time I had a booking in Napa Valley. I left my bag there cause I came back for another booking a week later. One time I was in Grenada with a US client, and then flew to the Bahamas for a British client. That wasn’t easy. Talk about planes, trains and automobiles. Never a dull moment.

Now I sit around and stare at my dog. Oh, on a side note, check this out. It’s pretty funny, So, our government in its infinite wisdom decided to downgrade my foodstamps from a whopping $53 a month to a whopping $16 a month. Crazy, right? For breakfast, I think I’ll just dip my napkin into my orange juice and dampen my lips, then graze on some grass outside. I’m gonna leave it at that.

Hey, you know what? This might be a good way to lose weight. Just sign up for foodstamps.

Have a good week you guys.

Love, B. Nice

December 23, 2020

Welcome everyone to the blog where I talk about the past.

Now, I know I’ve told you this story a long time ago, but it’s in keeping with the holidays. I used to get hired by several different catalogues to do their holiday catalogue. I usually shot the catalogue around August. It was always a challenge, but I kind of looked forward to it. I say it was a challenge because, first of all, it was in August, and second of all, I had to make fake snow look real. My instrument of choice was always the potato flakes. They were good for the environment and also worked well with a fan and the right shutter speed on the camera. I usually shot somewhere where there were expansive fields and pine trees. Or in a house. Now, what I’m about to tell you, you might want to cover your kid’s ears. I found if you’re shooting in a field and cows wander up onto your set, you end up with some strange abstract set. Let me explain to you. Cows and potato flakes don’t mix well. If a cow eats a lot of potato flakes, it gives them diariah and makes them cough at the same time. Not a good look. My set looked like some strange art installation mixing holiday spirit and cow - you know - stuff. When we rolled up to the set in the morning, the art director was mortified. I thought it was kind of funny.

So, bottom line, if you use potato flakes to make fake snow, don’t let cows walk onto your set.

You know how they say most families are dysfunctional around the holidays? Well, actually, I think my photographs were dysfunctional. I created images that no one could live up to. It made me feel guilty. I mean, I would do stuff like drive a 1957 red station wagon down the road with christmas lights on it, and a tree on top of the car. It looked creatively good, but come on, how was that real? Am I getting too deep? Maybe I’ve been at home too long.

I don’t know why, but I just want to tell you a story that a girl told me about a long time ago. Now I’m going back to the dysfunctional family thing. Well, this girl was at home for Thanksgiving and she was having a hard time dealing with her family. Her sister in law suggested that she take some xanax that the sister in law had. Well, it was way too much xanax. In the middle of the girl’s conversation, she passed out and fell into her mashed potatoes and gravy.

That’s it for this holiday. Have a Merry Christmas everyone.

Love, B. Nice