August 8, 2023

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

I call death, “Catching the Bus.” Look, we all catch the bus one day. Some earlier than others. I’ve almost caught the bus several times. I always seem to miss the bus, thank God. One time I missed the bus was my very first photography trip. It was crazy. Now, I can’t tell you the whole story because I made a promise not to tell the story. But I can tell you that my fashion team and I were hunted. That’s almost comical when I say it out loud. But, yeah. We were hunted. I can assure you it’s not a comfortable feeling. The nights are brutal. But, the daytime, like when you’re in a crowd, is even worse. Talk about paranoia and being thrown into the deep end! I found the only way to alleviate the paranoia is heavy drugs. Just kidding. No. The only way to alleviate the paranoia is to remove yourself from the area. We took a boat and went down the coast. It was a relief to get away from everyone. Although, our model had a weird bonding experience with our driver. She called her husband in London and ended their relationship and stayed behind with the driver. I said to her, “Jane! What are you doing? When we leave, it’s gonna be a crazy life for you.” I mean, the house we were staying in had automatic assault rifles everywhere. It was a crazy trip. I later saw Jane at a party in London a few years later. She said to me, “Don’t mention the trip. I’m back together with my husband. It’s a sore subject.” I said, “Ya think?” Anyway. That’s all I’m gonna say about that subject. I feel nauseous just thinking about it.

I’ll change the subject for a minute.

When I was a kid, my parents sent me on a trip with my good friend. We biked throughout England, Northern France, Belgium and The Netherlands. We would bike from youth hostel to youth hostel. It was a great experience for a kid. The trip ended in Amsterdam. One of the kids on our trip went out to score some hash. He was gonna smuggle it back in his bike frame. What an idiot. Anyway the block of hash he bought turned out to be a block of licorice. That was some expensive licorice and a good life lesson.

Talk to you guys next week. Love, B. Nice

July 25, 2023

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

Now this blog kind of is related to the blog I just did (July 18, 2023-present). The story is basically related to my door jams.

One day a few years back, (at my old house), I was sitting in the door jam. My aide was a very large woman who said, “Let me squeeze past you.” Now, mind you, it was a very very hot day and we had no air conditioning. She was basically a giant sponge. Well, she decided to squeeze past me. Oh My God~! I felt like I was in hell! Not only did I get squeegeed by excess body run-off, but I was also assaulted by many many different folds of skin. Just another reason to widen your doorways.

Love and miss you guys. Talk to you soon.

Love, B. Nice

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