May 24, 2023

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

Man, talk about getting thrown into the deep end! I was in Australia about 6 months into my career. I started shooting, but I shot locally. Then, all of a sudden I got offered a trip. The photographer that was supposed to shoot a few stories in New Guinea backed out. Now, I think I know why he backed out. That place was crazy. I was in the highlands of New Guinea, a place where they really have only seen the modern day since 1940. I was introduced to modern day colonialism and racism. It was unreal. A place I never thought existed. And I was supposed to shoot a few fashion stories there. Now, I can’t get into what happened there because I made a promise to never tell what happened. But I can tell you I was hunted and the Australian SAS was brought in to protect my fashion team. Mind you, this was my first trip as a fashion photographer. So anyone who complained about catering after what I went through, I would just laugh.

Now, when I would travel, I would always take pictures, you know, like, what was going on. I would always shoot images like in a photo-journalistic style, I always had my camera with me. Now, in this trip to New Guinea I only shot one roll of film. The first image was when I first got off the plane and the last image was of a model shooting a 9mm pistol. The whole place kind of freaked me out. I just wanted to do the images and go home. I have lots of stories to tell about the trip, but the more I think about it, the more I don’t want to tell you the stories. It was crazy. I’m gonna actually cut it short for now. We’ll talk about something more cheerful next week.

Love and miss you guys. Love, B. Nice

March 31, 2023

Hi everybody! Welcome to my blog where I talk about my past.

You know, when I was ill, if you added up all the time I was in the hospital and rehab hospital, just shy of two years. I couldn’t watch TV, nor could I read. The only thing I could really do was listen to music and think about my past. Here’s a couple of examples of what I would think about:

Here’s three good reasons why you shouldn’t drink and drive. Tommy / John / and Kathy. You see, they were three good friends I had in high school. They were on their way back from a wine tasting and they were almost home, but they ran right into a big tree. All three of them gone. Done. Finito. It was very sad. Now, Tommy and John were on my track team. Kathy was the very first girl I had a crush on, and the very first girl I asked out. I still remember where she was sitting when I asked her out. I was so nervous. Anyway, we went out to dinner and at dinner I was very nervous. We were talking and I was gesturing with my fork and food, and the piece of steak on the end of my fork flew off and almost hit the table next to us. It was mortifying, but pretty funny. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, my father had to drive us because I didn’t pass my driver’s test to get a license. That was rather awkward. Hey, I did get a kiss at the end of the night. That was awesome, and my first kiss. Oh, and I’m not talking about my father. I’m talking about Kathy.

It was tough though. I had to go to a few funerals in one day. Kathy’s funeral was real rough. As they lowered the casket into the ground, her little sister dove onto the casket and said, “Please don’t go!” It was emotionally brutal. But I guess we all have stories like this right? Guess that’s high school.

Whenever I think about the sadness of death, I think about the happiness of birth, specifically the birth of my daughter. It was pretty cool to witness. She came out from behind the sheets. She was looking around like, “What the Hell?” She looked totally confused. I said, “Welcome!” and she looked over at me. Now, I can’t put into words the feeling you get when you make eye contact with a kid like that. It’s pretty awesome. Anyway, they cleaned her up and passed her to her mom. It was a pretty cool moment and something I’ll never forget.

Another story I would often think of was pretty cool. Remember, before I told you my parents took us out of school and we traveled the world. One spot I lived in was in a small town in the south of France. It was cool cause we not only lived there, but went to school. My dad painted as well. The house was pretty primitive. It was a stone house with no indoor plumbing. It had an outhouse. It was basically like camping. But we didn’t mind. I mean, I thought it was cool. It was like a big adventure. I found old roman coins, an old roman spear tip. It was fun. We helped the local farmers bring in the hay. A great memory.

The last thing I’ll share with you because I could go on and on, but the last thing I’ll share was when I ran across the United States. It was me and eleven other guys. We ran a continuous relay, day and night for the whole way. So basically, you would run two miles and rest for two hours before you ran again, and within those two hours of rest, you had to eat, sleep, take your turn at driving the van, and use the bathroom. Man! That motor home smelled like a 20 year old athletic sock that’s never been washed. Any reporters that wanted to do an interview, we made them do the interview in the motor home. We all had a good laugh all the time. But, Ill tell you, now, I know where the word finish line comes from, cause when I got across the line, I was finished. We all ran across the line together.

That’s it for this week. Love and miss you guys. Love, B. Nice

March 15, 2023

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

I’d like to dedicate this blog to the photographer I worked for in the early 80’s. I learned a lot from him. Some technical stuff, mostly what to do and what not to do in life. It was a great experience. I worked for him for about 2 years, but you know, if I was gonna do the whole learning photography thing over again, I’d go to school to learn the technical stuff for 2 years and then assist someone for 3 to 4 years.

Going back to the early 80’s, I was an assistant to this well known photographer in NYC. We were always on the road. It was a non-stop party. One trip in particular was to Acapulco, Mexico. Now, here’s where I go back to what I said in the last blog about the present. The whole thing about the drug lord I mentioned is not true, but the high class escorts, IS true, and the skinny dipping IS true. I’ll explain.

Now, I’m going back to the trip to Acapulco. When we first got there we all went out to dinner to a well known restaurant. We struck up a conversation with the table next to us. It was an elderly gentleman who was impeccably dressed and two younger women who were impeccably dressed. Well, after a few more tequilas, he invited us back to his house to check it out as a location and have a few drinks. We were up for it. The guy seemed cool. He said he was a “banker.” Well, we went to his house. There was an obscure, nondescript door in a wall with a buzzer and security camera. It looked very ordinary. We were buzzed in and it was amazing. The landscaping was incredible and there was a marble staircase leading down to the house. Well, we went down the stairs and all of a sudden there was this amazing huge swimming pool. It was alternating cobalt blue tiles and gold tiles. Of course there were roman like columns at the end of the pool with flames coming out the top. I thought banker, yeah, my ass, right. Anyway, we went down to the pool and to the right there was an indoor outdoor sitting area, you know like a lanai. That’s where we hung out and had drinks for a while. Well, after a few more tequilas, we decided it was a good idea to get naked and jump in the pool. It was a surreal moment. Here I was, overlooking Acapulco bay, naked in a weird pool in Mexico. Now check this out - the two girls who were with the older guy, they were high class escorts from Dallas, and they decided to put on their 80’s style swim suits which were high cut and didn’t leave much to the imagination. They also decided to put on their high heals, and they carried trays of champagne and tequila and various other adult items. I felt like I was on the movie set for the movie Caligula. The only thing that was missing was black doberman pinchers with diamond collars. I felt like I was in a photograph that Helmut Newton would do. (That dates me.)

The whole reason we were in Mexico was to shoot a beauty story for a well known fashion magazine. You’d know the name if I told you. This was back when magazines had a lot of money. I think we had 5 days to do 4 full page pictures. Crazy. Anyway, I didn’t see much of Acapulco. We stayed around the pool for most of the trip. We did end up using the house for the location for most of the time. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, one of the models came out of nowhere naked running down the stairs out of her mind on tequila. She slipped and fell on some pebbles around the pool and landed on her knees. Her knees were trashed. Well, we covered her up with towels. She was bleeding pretty bad from her knees. The rest is a whole other story, but we ended up going home, back to the hotel. Needless to say, all the pictures done with that model were headshots.

I would tell my neurologist stories like this to explain my lifestyle, and he would just shake his head. My parents were mortified.

Talk to you next week. Love, B Nice

February 15, 2023

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

I was reading what I wrote about Australia and the sun there. I forgot to tell you a story. Now, this is true but crazy, or crazy but true.

When I first got to my apartment on the beach in Australia, I went down to the beach in my typical NYC bathing suit. The bathing suit was a boxer cut, black swim shorts. Also, sporting the most white skin anyone’s ever seen. Hell, they should have called me the human guppie. You could see all my veins. Anyway, I noticed there was a film crew at the end of the beach. I didn’t pay it much mind and forgot about them and went for a swim. That evening, around 6 o’clock, I got a beer and sat down to watch the 6 o’clock news. They had a special report on skin cancer. The commentator said, you want your skin to look like this. It showed my back! I couldn’t believe I made the 6 o’clock news. I’ve got a lot of moles on my back from surfing. One time an old girlfriend numbered them 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. and played connect the dots. I was very drunk at the time. Anyway, I have a lot of moles on my back from surfing.

I’m gonna dedicate this blog to all the assistants I’ve worked with. I once had an assistant that used me as a human shield between him and an angry barracuda (fish). The barracuda can give you a nasty bite. I once had an assistant who got so wasted that he passed out and wedged his head between the toilet and the wall. I once had an assistant that was busy chatting up one of the models and didn’t see me walk backwards into an orchestra pit. All of this happened even though I asked him to watch my back. I once had an assistant who left most of the film in St. Bart’s and we didn’t notice it was missing until we got back to JFK in NYC. P.S. We got the film back because he went and got it. I once had an assistant. She plugged the lens into the wall and not the strobe pack. Needless to say, there was no more lens left. I once had an assistant who put my camera at the wrong setting and half the film came out. I mean, literally half of it. There was a black line through half the film. I had to pay for a re-shoot day. I once had an assistant who was so flipped out about breaking up with a woman that he forgot to zipper up the camera bag. Lenses and cameras went all over the parking lot.

I have many other stories, but probably the worst assistant was ME. I once backed the production van over the sea-wall. The only thing that kept the van from going into the bay was the transmission. I wasn’t allowed to get out of the truck until the tow truck arrived. All this above is probably why I’m so hard on my assistants. I know what can go wrong, because I did it.

Anyway, I’m gonna keep it short this week. Love and miss you guys. Love, B. Nice

P.S. I’m gonna leave you with another assistant stories. I was at a famous horse stable. We were working around a very famous horse. My assistant decided to share his pistachio nuts with the race horse. The horse looked like it ate a giant peanut butter. It was pretty funny because I kept saying, “You’ve killed the horse!” He looked a little freaked out.

February 8, 2023

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

I was looking at the previous post and it reminded me of Australia and how much I miss it. I remember after my honeymoon (the first one), I was presented with the option of either going back to New York, or living in Australia. I could either go back to New York as an assistant photographer, live in my small, dark, rented room in New York that had a very small window that overlooked a beautiful dark airshaft, filled with pigeons (half alive, half dead) and the airshaft was filled with garbage. OR, for the same price, I could live in Australia as a photographer, rent a beautiful, fully furnished holiday flat that was sun filled and overlooked the beach. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, in my NY apartment I had two roommates, and one time someone tried to break into the apartment while I was there. Now, going back to the Australian apartment, it was just me and my wife and had a beautiful cross breeze. So yeah, I stayed in Australia.

Now, you’re probably wondering how I stayed there. Well… My good “friend” got me a resident visa, but that’s a whole other story. That definitely falls under the category of “I plead the fifth amendment.”

It was a great Visa. Let’s put it this way, every time I left or entered Australia, the customs agent said, “Who are you?!” I just replied with a smile.

I learned a lot of things in Australia. Here’s two important things that I learned. The first is this: If you stick to something long and hard enough, you’re gonna get results (that’s what she said…heh heh). You see, I worked my ass off pounding the pavement looking for work and eventually you get a break from someone. If you stick to something long enough, you’re gonna get a break. You just gotta stick to it. Don’t quit. I still remember the fashion editor and the magazine that gave me a break. It was a tough one. They gave me ski wear to photograph. Now, Australia isn’t really known for its ski wear, so I pulled a slight of hand trick. I made the clothes second to the image. In other words, I made great photos and the clothes just became an element to the image. I hired Olympic level arial jumpers to wear my fashion clothes. I rented a trampoline, got some parachutes to cover it, and covered the whole thing in fake snow. The acrobats wore short skis. They did back flips and all sorts of stuff. The images were cool.

Anyway, that story launched me on my three decade long career as a fashion photographer. So yeah, someone will give you a break if you stick to your guns. It might just take a long time, but it will happen.

The second thing I learned, and this is important: always follow up on what you say you’re gonna do. I presented many stories to fashion magazines. And believe me, they remember what you propose, so you gotta followup on what you say you’re gonna do, and that probably applies to everything.

That’s about it for this week. Just remember, if you go to Australia, as a photographer, remember the light is strong there. It’s a lot different from here. I remember the first time I got my film back (that dates me). I thought there was something wrong with my film or that lab’s processing. Everything was so contrasty. You see there’s a lot more ultra violet light there. You become used to shooting in that sort of light. It’s not so much about changing your settings, but there are little tricks you can do, like shoot in open shade, backlight, that sort of stuff. You can deal with it. But the first time I saw it, it freaked me out. Which reminds me of one other thing I’ll say: man, watch out for your skin! Hell, they took off half my nose a few years back because I had skin cancer throughout my nose. That’s because I surfed, wind surfed, and worked outside all the time. Just be careful to cover up.

OK, now that’s it. I’ll talk to you guys next week. This is B. Nice signing off,

Oh, please watch this again. I keep pushing, but eventually the right person will watch this:

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