Meet Nicolette

Meet Nicolette. You might know her as Stevie Foxx but she’s not that person anymore.

It seems crazy that these photos were taken less than a year ago. I took them the day after I met Nicolette for the first time. I feel like we have gone through a ton since then (We got stuck in an elevator just minutes before midnight on New Years Eve!) and I now consider her a really good friend. That’s the best part of this job. I get to meet so many amazing people and Nicolette and I hit it off right way.

When we shot these photos Nicolette was drinking a lot. I saw her drink a bottle of whiskey to herself the night before and she was halfway through a bottle while we were shooting these. I can only remember a couple times I was with her when she wasn’t swigging from a bottle of Jameson.

I don’t drink very often and one of the main reasons is because I have seen alcohol destroy so many of my friends. I lost a grandfather to it and a best friend. So when I Nicolette and I became better friends her drinking started to worry me a lot. She was so nice and fun and creative and it killed me to see her drinking that much. She honestly could handle it pretty well but she would flake on shit or wake up wondering what the hell happened to her missing fingernail.

Fortunately, she recognized the problem and got help. She moved to Florida and got the fuck away from the bullshit in her life and has been reborn. She stopped drinking and started getting healthy and I am so fucking happy for her. I know it’s going to be hard but I am pretty confident she’s gonna be okay.

I haven’t seen her since she left New York but she’s back coming up next month and I can’t wait to see her and take some new photos from her new life. Next time I post her photos I won’t even mention Stevie Foxx again because that’s not who she is anymore. I can’t wait to meet Nicolette.

Click here to see all the photos of Nicolette on our friend Ari’s old roof in Brooklyn.

Ps. There are a some more explicit high res photos of her on Girls of Driven By Boredom plus exclusive mini set of her and American Cassidy that I took while I was shooting for my NOT SAFE ZINE and my Instaxxx book.

Nicolette

Nicolette

Nicolette

Nicolette

Nicolette

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The Lot – 8.19.17

On Saturday I went to a party/show/classic motorcycle rally. My friends at Sailor Jerry were sponsoring the event in the Broadway Stages parkinglot in Greenpoint and asked me to come by. A bunch of bands were playing and there were some solid food trucks and a ton of vintage motorcycles. Seemed like a good time.

I got there pretty early so I was in time to see Julia Haltigan go on and then I photographed a bunch of the bikes and hung out with the Sailor Jerry crew. They were giving away a hand painted Harley and the had someone live painting a helmet with classic Sailor Jerry flash. I hung out with the homie & SJ brand ambassador Gravy Thomas who never stops moving throwing these SJ events across the country. Every time they do one of these motorcycle events I wanna buy a bike but am 100% sure I would wreck it in a week in NYC traffic.

As the sun started to go down Sharmuffin started playing and they were great. Their front woman got in the crowd and finally turned the block party into a rock show which I appreciated. I was actually supposed to be somewhere else after that but I wanted to stick around for Daddy Long Legs. I shot them at the Beauty Bar 20th anniversary party and they were really fun and I am glad I stuck around.

I did have to leave before Dirty Fences played but the party was 10 hours long and I had to get a bunch of stuff done by Monday (which is why these photos didn’t go up until today.) But I’ve shot them before too and they are really fun. Wish I could have stuck around.

Anyway check out these photos because even if you don’t care about old motorcycles and rock bands you will care about the photos of adorable dogs at the party.

Click here to see all the photos from The Lot vintage motorcycle party!

Daddy Long Legs, Andy Animal & Gravy Thomas

The Lot

The Lot

The Lot

The Lot

The Lot

Daddy Long Legs

 

 

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Trump Tower Protest – 8.14.17

I was in the middle of writing this post when Trump just gave a press conference where he defended neo-Nazis live on TV. I don’t even know how to fucking deal with that. I was already sick to my stomach after watching the Vice story on Charlottesville and the past few days have had me in just constant depression. All I can do is read about this shit and it’s fucking up my mental health. Honestly.

I was so fucking depressed yesterday so I decided to do something with that and go protest Trump at Trump Tower. It was his first trip back since his January 20th when he was sworn in. There would have been a protest anyway but after Charlottesville it was a completely different mood.

I got there a bit late and it was already dark. I made it about a block from Trump Tower and joined a pen of protesters. I brought my camera but I wasn’t really working. I just figured I should take a couple photos because that’s all I know how to do. There were a lot of people there but it was sort of anti-climatic. I was in a group with a bunch of people with drums singing silly chants about love trumping hate. I have too much anger for that shit. New York Hates You and Fuck Trump were the only chants I could bring myself to join in on.

I need to do more. I have used my platform to talk about this shit but that’s not enough. I wrote about my white privilege for 2000 Words yesterday and made a donation to a tattoo shop that is covering up white power and gang tattoos for people who have turned their lives around. The non-profit I run is non-political but we are making a donation to Life After Hate, an organization that tries to get people to leave a life of white supremacy behind. I listened to a Podcast with the former white power skinhead who runs it and I knew I wanted to do something to help him.

I still don’t really know what to do about any of this, but I need to do something. I need to be more involved. I hope if nothing else this week inspires more people to get involved in activism and fight these Nazi scum one way or another.

Look, these photos aren’t very good. They are mostly just photos of signs, but they are at least an excuse to do a post about this and use this blog to get some of this shit off my chest and maybe get a couple of you to do something to, whatever that may be.

Click here to see my photos from last night’s Trump Tower protest.

Trump Tower Protest

Trump Tower Protest

Trump Tower Protest

Trump Tower Protest

Trump Tower Protest

 

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Meet Belen

Back in January when I was shooting Blair Williams, she introduced me to her friend Belen who was doing her make up. Belen was pretty amazing and I had to take some photos of her too. She didn’t do nude modeling or anything so we didn’t try and make plans for another shoot or anything but when I was out in LA last month hanging out with Blair she came up.

Blair and I got lunch right when I landed in LA. I Tweeted something about killing time before I had to check into my hotel and Blair responded and we met up. I mentioned that I only had the hotel for a few days and she out of nowhere offered to let me stay in her place while she was out of town. I love Blair but we had only hung out a handful of times and it meant so much that she trusted me to take care of her place for a few days. Her only rule was that no one could come over… except Belen.

She knew how hot I thought Belen was and texted her about shooting with me. Belen had never done nude modeling but was down to take photos in her underwear. A few days later Belen met me at Blair’s place and we shot a bunch of photos of her in a bunch of different outfits. Belen was so easy to shoot and we got some really nice photos really quickly.

As much as I loved shooting Belen she also seemed really comfortable with me and actually shot some implied nude stuff which she had never done before. Before the shoot was over she had actually flashed Blair’s entire neighborhood from a fire escape. It was so much fun.

Anyway, this set isn’t naked or anything but I think you are going to love it anyway. I personally can’t wait to shoot Belen again. Maybe some more of Belen and Blair together.

I want to keep promoting Girls of Driven By Boredom since that’s what this week is all about, but honestly I don’t have anything extra for you from this set. Still you can see all of these in high resolution and you could have seen them yesterday if you had signed up. So sign up.

Oh, and buy my book. Belen and Blair are in it together.

Now click here to see all the photos of Belen in Blair Williams’ apartment!

Belen

Belen

Belen

Belen

Belen

Belen

Belen

 

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Arya Fae

Arya Fae is great. We had been friends on Instagram for a while and we met in reality at the AVN Awards back in January, but it wasn’t until I was in LA for the LA Art Book Fair that we met in real life. The LAABF trip was a Kickstarter stretch goal for my Instaxxx book. The idea was I would go out there and try to find a good printer or maybe some distribution for my book, but nothing came of it and it just added to me spending way too much money on the book. On the positive side I took a lot of fucking rad photos that week and I think the best of them were of Arya Fae.

I met Arya at her place and we did a shoot in the alley behind her place. There were a ton of people coming in and out of the apartments that connect to the alley so we had to be pretty sneaky. We shot on her steps and in the parking garage and got some good stuff before heading back inside. The idea was to take a few quick photos outside and then shoot more in her bed but I took so many damn photos in both places that I am gonna split this up into two different posts. Sorry.

Anyway, after the shoot Arya and I got food and then we ended up having to drive all over town and then I got stuck at her place at rush hour and we ended up hanging out until I was supposed to shoot Jojo Kiss. Well, it turns out her and Jojo are tight so we went over to Jojo’s place together and met up with my friend Alondra and Arya’s friend Charlotte and we went in the hot tub and partied and we shot a ton of Instax for my book. There’s probably six or 7 pages in Instaxxx taken on this one day in February alone. BUY THE BOOK HERE!

So here’s what you get today. You get the photos from outside on this site. And then if you subscribe to Girls of Driven By Boredom you get all the photos in high resolution, PLUS you get a few more explicit shots from outside AND you get a bunch of random photos from that party we had after the shoot. They are not very good photos technically, but I have a feeling you are gonna really like them anyway.

Not sure when, but I will get up the rest of the shoot on here in the future. I feel like I should hold off a bit and spread out the Arya magic… oh, and did I mention I shot her again a couple weeks ago?

Now click here to see the first round of photos of the amazing Arya Fae!

Arya Fae

Arya Fae

Arya Fae

Arya Fae

Arya Fae

 

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Eddy

I have been friends with Eddy Segal for a really long time and pretty much that entire time I have been trying to take photos of her. I did shoot her for collaborative zine ARTS, but it’s been a mostly failed venture but I texted her to invite her to my LA Instaxxx book launch and she ended up coming out. We talked for a bit and she told me that if we made the photo shoot about her artwork she would shoot finally with me.

That was perfect for me me because I love shooting people in their environments. I had this idea in my head about shooting her while she was painting in her underwear or something, but since some of her artwork is wearable we ended up shooting her in her mom’s old wedding dress that she painted, a wearable collage and ended the shoot with a dress she was still working on. In between we shot her in her underwear with some paintings and then with another fabric piece. It ended up being a really cool shoot. Oh, I should mention that Eddy’s spot in Malibu is fucking amazing.

This shoot is noticeably not naked, which is disappointing for everyone of course, but we did shoot a couple nude shots that I might use for book projects in the future. Plus she let me include one and a half nudes on Girls of Driven By Boredom which is what I am trying to convince you to sign up for this week and if seeing Eddy’s butt isn’t worth $7 I don’t know what the fuck is.

Plus! Eddy’s friend Miracle was at the house when we were taking photos and ended up jumping into the shoot. I posted an exclusive set of her to Girls of Driven By Boredom as well. That set has more photos of Eddy in it too because I am a wonderful human.

In conclusion, go look at Eddy’s art, sign up for Girls of DBB, go buy my fucking book and then you can look at photos.

Click here to see all the photos of Eddy Segal with her artwork.

Eddy Segal

Eddy Segal

Eddy Segal

 

 

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Vixxin

Many years ago I met Vixxin via the internet. I think maybe she was a Gods Girl. She was from my former hometown of Richmond, VA and on a trip back we did a shoot and really hit it off. Next time I was in town we went on a real solid Waffle House date and hung out a few times after that when we were in the same place.

At some point we sort of lost touch but I followed her on Instagram and when I was working on my Instaxxx book I hit her up about doing our second shoot years after the first. I had this idea of taking old Polaroids I shot and comparing them to new Instax Wide photos. I ended up with about 10 of them in the book and it’s actually one of my favorite parts of the book.

Anyway, Vixxin was down and when I was in DC visiting family over some sort of holiday I borrowed my mom’s car and drove down to Richmond. Unfortunately I got there sort of late and we had run out of light, but the light in her bathroom wasn’t completely terrible so we made it work. I had such a crush on her back in the day so I wasn’t gonna complain too much.

In the years since our first shoot Vixxin has changed a lot. She has a new name and a new dog and some new… well, you’ll have to buy the book to see all the changes because our first shoot is so old I am not even going to link it. I was a much worse naked babe photographer back then (although I am a much worse party photographer now so it evens out). But I guess if you can find it you win a prize or something. The prize of seeing Vixxin with MySpace hair and less… tattoos.

Now here’s the part where I promote Girls of Driven By Boredom. Sign up now and not only will you get to see all these photos in high resolution, plus some extra photos of Vixxin’s butt, but you will also get to see the set I am posting tomorrow and tons of other exclusive content. I realized yesterday that I had no idea how much Girls of DBB even costs, but it’s less than $7 a month or under $25 a year. That seems totally reasonable right? Help me pay off the credit card bill I racked up working on this damn book!

Now click here to see all the NSFW photos of Vixxin!

Vixxin

Vixxin

Vixxin

 

 

 

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Samantha Rone Returns

I have been back from travelling long enough to kinda have my shit together. I am honestly not unpacked yet but close enough. The rest of this month is gonna be spent trying to start my life over after this massive book project. My apartment is destroyed because of the books and shipping and all of that so it’s time to organize my life and make some damn money. I need to sell another 150 books to break even so buy one already. And now we are going to spend all week promoting Girls of Driven By Boredom which has been neglected a bit while I was working on Instaxxx.

So today is Monday and we got some photos of Samantha Rone for you. I am going to put up a girl gallery every day this week but I am going to update Girls of Driven By Boredom with the photos first. So for example these photos of Sam have been up for a few hours already and if you want to see who I am going to update with tomorrow check Girls of DBB because they are already up! Plus there are of course in high resolution and there are even some spread leg shots on there that I would never post on such a chaste site as this.

I am also gonna post some bonus mini-galleries on there that won’t be on here at all. Sorry but I need your money. All $7 a month of $18 a year or whatever the fuck it costs to sign up. To be honest I have no idea.

Anyway, Sam was in NYC and we shot for the second time. Plus she was on my Christmas card so that’s almost like three shoots, but this gallery is called “Samantha Rone II” so deal with it. Sam was here dancing at Sapphire so I took some photos of her in her hotel room real quick before it got to dark to shoot and she had to go show people her boobs on stage or whatever happens there.

Okay, it’s almost midnight and I want to get this up while it’s still technically Monday so let’s get to the photos. More on all this madness tomorrow.

Buy my book here. Sign up for Girls of Driven By Boredom here.

Click here to see all the NSFW photos of Samantha Rone here.

Samantha Rone

Samantha Rone

Samantha Rone

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RIP Webster Hall – 8.5.17

It seems like the only time I cover nightlife anymore is when some sort of historic NYC institution shuts it’s doors. Between the New York nightlife and all of my friends who have died I seem to be getting a little too good at writing eulogies… But that’s life and sadly we suffered another casualty in the corporate takeover of downtown New York City: Webster Hall.

Webster Hall doesn’t close it’s doors for a few days, but last night was the memorial service for the legendary venue. AEG Live recently bought Bowery Presents (Terminal 5, Bowery Ballroom, etc) and they weren’t done buying up New York venues. They partnered with Brooklyn Sports Entertainment (Barclays Center) to purchase Webster Hall after being owned by the same family for nearly 30 years. The venue will continue, possibly under the same name, but it won’t be the same.

Webster Hall was home to the first Motherfucker party I shot for my site. Motherfucker was the greatest party I have ever been to and their 7th anniversary was at Webster. I barely knew Michael T at the time and he specifically told me I couldn’t shoot it so I went around him and got a press pass from the Faint. The next day I got an angry phone call from Michael yelling at me about going around his back. I still have no idea how he got my number but despite his anger he loved my photos and I from then on I was always on the guest list to his parties.

Webster Hall was the place I would bring friends who were visiting town so they could see what real nightlife felt like. Webster Hall had the kinda parties you only see in movies. I would spend New Years eve there hanging with tourists and porn stars and misfits and famous DJs. I let Alex English crowd surf with my camera to MSTRKRFT and partied with a dwarf dressed like a New Year’s baby. It was always the party you dreamed about going to before you moved to NYC.

When my favorite weekly party Trash moved to the basement of Webster I was disappointed because there weren’t any lockable bathrooms to shoot naked girls in, but I quickly got over that because Alex and Rekles were throwing their weekly Boys & Girls upstairs. Every Friday I would shoot both parties for the Village Voice and get paid twice for the same amount of work.

I could use the word legendary a lot in this article but Boys & Girls will go down in history. I don’t think EDM would be what it is today without that party. From their first sold out party featuring Justice to Skrillex playing last night they gave DJs of all genres a huge platform in NYC and they did it so consistently for so long. Despite my long career shooting dance parties I don’t actually like dance music, but that scene was so much fun to photograph and it really felt like a family. For so many years the only DJs I knew were DJs I actually knew and now those same people are touring the globe making millions. That shift from EDM feeling like an underground movement to Atrak, Skrillex and Diplo becoming pop stars was such a crazy thing to be a part of and you had a front row to that every Friday night at Webster Hall.

Once EDM became pop culture the vibe of Webster Hall changed quickly. There were so many bros upstairs at Girls & Boys that the only safe space was when you were hanging out on stage. The security became overly aggressive and there were always crazy lines. Getting into Webster Hall became so stressful. You had to make sure you were on the right list and had the right photo pass and then had to wait in line again your bag checked and then groped by security. By the time I got in the club all the positive energy I had would be gone.

But downstairs at Trash was a whole different thing. DJ Jess was the first person to hire me to shoot parties in New York and one of my favorite people to party with. When Jess worked out his deal with Webster he was given his own door and own security and they were told not to search anyone. Jess stepped up and took responsibility for his party. His little family of misfits playing the Smiths and Bowie were left alone by the finance bros and aggressive security upstairs. Once you got past “door bitch” Brendon James you were set.

Jess threw me a bunch of birthday parties over the years but my 30th was the last and one of the most memorable. I will leave out the details here but let’s just say I got fairly drunk and ended the night naked stuck inside my laundry basket until the go-go dancer I had lured home with me with the promise of tiny kittens pulled me out. My final Tweet of the night was about eating a pretzel sandwich.

Eventually I went to Trash less and less but I would always go to Trash’s anniversary parties. Trash meant so much to me and it was the longest running weekly party downtown. When it finally ended it felt like such a huge chapter in my life had closed. It was such a sad moment made only more sad by the tragic death of DJ Jess a year later. I actually referred to his death as the end of New York nightlife. It was so fucking heartbreaking but his memorial brought so many people back together and it was of course held at Webster Hall.

Despite my complaints about the terrible crowds and aggressive security at “Webster Hell” I really do have so much love for the place. I met so many amazing friends and lovers there. I had so many good times. Many of the staff felt like family and I loved going to Veselka or Sidewalk or another diner with the bartenders and go go dancers and DJs at 5:30am after waiting for everyone to finally clear out so we could get paid. Last night I got to see a lot of those people again.

There are a lot of people that run Webster but I want to give Kenny Schachter a special thanks. He would always get me into shit if I asked and was always so cool to me. He really appreciated the people who were part of the scene and made me feel appreciated. He was one of the first people I ran into last night when he walked me in the door and made sure I had all the passes I needed without having to deal with any of the madness. Skrillex and Boys Noize gave him a shout out last night and the whole thing got me choked up when they brought him on stage and thanked him for everything.

Before I finally get to the photos I should probably mention the actual party last night. Deux Twins were on when I got there and they were followed by Ekali. Around 1am Skrillex got on and didn’t stop playing until six in the morning. He brought up Boys Noize and they performed as Dog Blood which is honestly a fantastic name for just about anything. I have also been told I should mention that DJ Sliink was there although he didn’t play any music.

I still don’t fucking know anything about EDM but Skrillex was a pretty good soundtrack to reminisce to. I just hung out on stage all night with old friends telling stories about that period of time where we ran downtown nightlife. I was talking to a DJ, a coke dealer, a door guy and another photographer together just looking back on the last decade. I might be a more successful photographer now and still doing some interesting shit with my life but I don’t think my life will ever be as fun as the years where I could walk into any bar or nightclub south of 14th street without so much as an ID. I would know a dozen people in every spot and run into bunch more people while headed to the next one.

Everyone who has ever lived in NYC has their “things were better back in my day” story but the sale of Webster Hall another reminder that the New York I fell in love with is gone. Thanks for the memories.

Click here to see way too many photos of Skrillex from the End Of An Era closing party for Webster Hall.

RIP Webster Hall

Skrillex

rip-webster-hall-699

RIP Webster Hall

RIP Webster Hall

Deux Twins

Boys Noize & Skrillex

RIP Webster Hall

 

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