A lot of my great uncle Sal’s large format negative or in some type of order professional portfolios Stage and theater His performances but there are a lot of random negatives like this one I ask myself why did he take it because back in the day you had one shot you had to think about it before hitting that shutter so I say to myself what was going through his head Anyway if you saw the movie dusk till dawn when George Clooney tells his little brother Quentin Tarantino to stay with the heavy lady till he gets back and he kills her she looks like this woman even the way she’s looking, This Is when I ate a gummy bear and start thinking
This is my grandfather‘s first boat out of four 1951 the greyhound besides taking charters out and a lot of private gambling parties He was smuggling in and out of San Diego Bay in Cuba he eventually started working for the CIA bringing spies and important people back-and-forth to Cuba I’m just scraping the tip of the iceberg they made a movie about it
The photo that you were looking at was taken in 1949 the big mask in the background Mr. Neptune masks of Wisdom Was made in 1938 he was going to be in the 1939 worlds fair that didn’t go according to plan it made Sal crazy for about two months but that’s another whole incredible story Anyway Mr. Neptune right there is in one of our bedrooms here in Florida he has such incredible ingredients in his papier-mâché mix Let’s start off with pyramids scrapings from Egypt, Haitian voodoo dust Secret potions from around the world there’s a lot more secret things in there I’ll talk about in the book Anyway I am working on my website in the mask room where Mr. Neptune is that he’s actually staring down at me
This is one of my great uncle Sal’s portraits sometime in the late 50s at his studio in Manhattan as i study this portrait I definitely see two people Tom Cruise and Elvis Presley this is what I see
Let me explain why this is a very interesting group of 12 people as far back as 1929 my great uncle Sal has been doing portraits of pretty much man maybe because he was gay but he loved the photograph man all the way till his death in 1995 I’m a little different I have been a portrait photographer for 42 years I really enjoyed photographing women I even published over 1200 of them not as many as my great uncle Sal but I think close we were two photographers same bloodline running parallels that’s how I see it sal and myself wearing just photographers we pretty much lead a very exciting life and were fortunate to capture it on film our first book should be very interesting not just Sal and myself we have to throw in the master the wild man himself Captain Tony his little brother my grandfather This first book is going to be a comedic look at a sexually driven mob family to be honest it’s hysterical with all photo back up that’s what’s going to make this book special Photo ba
Check out this portrait done of captain Tony above his bar in his brothers photography mask studio 1971
Every once in a while a photographer catches a break I got a call one morning around 9 o’clock it was the managing editor of the Key West citizen newspaper Roger Bartel telling me to get down to the Navy base bring my press pass and a lot of film there was a massive drug bust out an international international waterway A freighter A big freighter We’re talking 200 tons of panama red it would end up being the largest drug seizure in the history of South Florida I was first photographer on site before anybody I published four images from that bust it made me a super professional Journalist by the next day and the storys that go with this bust are Key West originals let’s just say everybody and their mother had a garbage can in the garage of this wicked weed and trust me this panama red was some of the best weed I ever smoked I mean people smoked that’s what they told me March 27, 1980 when Key West was Key West
I was at some party in Brooklyn and took a picture out of the window not remember the party or the window but it was definitely over 20 years ago love this image