In 1977 I got my first professional camera in Key West Florida and started shooting right away every sunset sunrise palm tree characters in my grandfathers bar I went camera crazy there was one thing on my mind a lot of memories I had of Times Square in New York City we all use to cut school in the early 70s and take the train over there the people the buildings just amazed me so after shooting in Key West for one year I had to fly back home to visit family and friends I also couldn’t wait to get over to time square to shoot some film the year 1978 I made it to Times Square with my camera and four rolls of film this is one of the first pictures I took with a real camera in Times Square The bizarre thing is 10 years later in 1988 I get a job in a camera store pretty much at that same location and ended up shooting thousands of images check out my digital library portraitsofnewyork.com if you go to my image bank mia5.com you will see 65,000 images that I edited out of 300,000 every i

Besides great uncle Sal and myself being professional photographers it was also our passion and Hobby if we weren’t shooting pictures for money we were just shooting away anyway that’s why this family has over 90 years of incredible family portraits this is one of my favorites I have the glass slide and negative that’s three of my great aunts on the right my grandfather Captain Tony screaming in the background on the far left my great uncle Luigi captain Tony‘s younger brother bye 11 months those other two kids are my second cousins the year 1946 just before Captain Tony fled from New Jersey to hide out in Key West that’s a hell of a story This picture also tells 100 stories it’s a built-in swimming pool that Captain Tony built in back of his yard The reason why he built it is because he stole some industrial water pump filter from the Newark docks he was doing a lot of robbing those days and had a lot of connections of people who worked on those cargo ships

Besides great uncle Sal and myself being professional photographers it was also our passion and Hobby if we weren’t shooting pictures for money we were just shooting away anyway that’s why this family has over 90 years of incredible family portraits this is one of my favorites I have the glass slide and negative that’s three of my great aunts on the right my grandfather Captain Tony screaming in the background on the far left my great uncle Luigi captain Tony‘s younger brother bye 11 months those other two kids are my second cousins the year 1946 just before Captain Tony fled from New Jersey to hide out in Key West that’s a hell of a story This picture also tells 100 stories it’s a built-in swimming pool that Captain Tony built in back of his yard The reason why he built it is because he stole some industrial water pump filter from the Newark docks he was doing a lot of robbing those days and had a lot of connections of people who worked on those cargo ships

You entered the category on this website that has over 900 images all taking by those wild Terracina’s it’s over a range of 90 years Sal opened up the first Terracina Studio in 1929 he was 18 years old I myself started getting my photos published in the late 70s when I worked for the Key West citizen newspaper and Kennedy Studios I would eventually get over to New York City and start working for three different exotic dancer magazines publishing hundreds of some very beautiful women even Captain Tony my grandfather jumped in on the photography craze he took a lot of photos in Key West as far back as to late 40s through the 70s this photo right here it’s from a nightclub in New York called Lace a upscale gentlemens club They advertised in our magazine and I supplied them with some New Jersey strippers Yes I was the man back then

You have entered a category on this website which has over 1000 images all with little stories taken by the notorious Terracina Family it covers a range of 93 years Salvatore and Keith Terracina have been published photographers their whole lives the other family member who you might know the wild man himself Captain Tony X New Jersey mob guy fled to Key West in the 40s and became a famous sea boat captain smuggling rum and CIA agents in and out of Cuba during the 50s and 60s he also bought the original Hemingway bar and became mayor of Key West so he also caught some pretty wild images during his lifetime I am the guy who owns them all over a quarter million of some wild images with even wilder stories, this image right here is a person that hung around Times Square for over 20 years I photographed in Times Square for 30 years I knew she existed she knew I existed she would stand in one position for hours staring down 42nd St. If you stay in this category on this site you will be to

There is many reasons why this category on this site is so unique first of all there’s over 800 images all with some cool stories About them-and every image is taken by one of the Terracina‘s Sal, Captain Tony, and myself some of the images go as far back as the late 20s in Sals first Mask photography studio this image right here was taken in his studio 1933 Sal was 22 years old he also painted that painting and he was experimenting with double exposures That was one of his lovers a Ronnie and his little brother standing my great uncle Luigi As you go through this category which will probably takes three hours you might see a couple pictures twice And we are having problems with her spellcheck just be patient everything will be corrected but you could still enjoy it

I spent 30 years photographing in New York City the last two years were spent at Coney Island if you go to my showcase website portraitsofnewyork.com You will see 65,000 images that I edited out of a quarter of 1 million every one of them is taken by me this category your on now with the 800 images and stories is really worth going through If you see two of the same images in a row for working on correcting that also with the spelling enjoy this category

You entered a category on this website which is pretty amazing there as close to 1000 portraits done by my great uncle Sal, Captain Tony and myself each image has a explanation on what was going on,My great uncle Sal and myself are published photographers with studios in New York Jersey and in Key West enjoy all these photos there are some doubles at times and we’re having Problems with our spellcheck When you get past the first 20 images this site will blow your mind trust me

After partying and living like a rockstar in Key West it was time for me to leave I had a seven-year stretch the first five years was unbelievable an the last two were the most disastrous Be very careful speeding in the fast lane with no seatbelts on Key West can chew you up and spit you out Anyway I had to re-create myself as a Photographer New York seemed like the place to go My first week Photographing in Times Square I figure I’ll take a picture of a prostitute talking to a customer I didn’t realize the pimp was 20 feet away from her to protect her, He saw me taking a picture he yelled at me and threw a bottle at me in the middle of the day Portraits of New York was born that day

There is an image right after this one it’s a portrait of my partner Kerry Martin and one of my great uncle Sal‘s masks we are holding one of our manuscripts 480 pictures The Terracina Masquerade I couldn’t finish the story because this site only lets me do two little paragraphs on each image just so you know there is over 800 images on this category with some pretty wild stories if you stay on this category you will get to view many images that will be in the book or books depends what deal we sign Anyway there is over 3000 of these large format negatives that the world has not seen yet Don’t know who he is or where it was but I do know it was the mid 40s