A lot of photographers have a certain style, as far as the beach photos what I do is get a 6 foot ladder get up at the highest point and shoot down I spent two years documenting Coney Island I shot this from the pier which is at least 20 feet of water level and then I stood on a six-foot ladder check out my website topnewyork.com Did lots of cool portfolios on the beach and under the pier

Time for a little bragging about my grandfather in 1947 he fled Elizabeth New Jersey with the mob on his ass he pulled a scam with the wrong people whatever money he got away with he blew it at the horse track in Miami, with A couple dollars in his pocket and nowhere to go he remembered his big brother Sal told him about this place called Key West, a real long story cut short, He Hitch hiked to Key West when he got there he never saw anything so beautiful in his life, The milk truck that he was on Left him off on Simonton Street an Truman He walked west to the center of town he had breakfast there grits and grounts after that he went by the docks looking at all the fishing boats and the shrimp factories he really fell in love with this place The next 20 years Were amazing for him bought a bunch of boats Became one of the most famous sea Captains and smuggler, even work for the CIA he married to more women had a bunch more kids and then he bought the oldest bar in Key west my grandfather had his face on more things in Key West than anybody including Hemingway, he had his face on his boats the bar, billboards, T-shirts, rolling papers, girls panties This was just the first 20 years the next 20 years would be unbelievable more wives more kids and then he becomes mayor I was lucky I got to work for him for seven years it was better than college the book is almost done a comedic look at his sexually driven mob family

In 1972 I got my drivers license and my first car my moms 69 Chevy Malibu, I installed an eight track player in there, The first 8 Trak tape I bought was a band called the Blue Öyster Cult that I loved, 40 years later About eight years ago these guys came to my camera store to buy some equipment they needed in an emergency, they looked like rock stars to me they actually were that was the drummer an the bass player from that band I gave them a super deal on the equipment they needed and I told him the story about getting my drivers license and their music was my first tape they asked me for my address when they left, About two weeks later this great package came in the mail original eight track tapes cassettes some CDs and some shirts what a bunch of great guys

In my 42 years of photography I did learn some things In the late 80s a lot of women were having cosmetic surgery butt implants weren’t so popular yet, except in Columbia all the young girls at the age of 18 we’re having it done for their birthday there’s a bunch of Columbian bakery is in New York that specialize in these girls with these bubble butts I know for sure I did a bunch of their portfolios it’s a very big thing over there besides the breast implants, About 15 years ago these girls came flying by me they all had fake butts I knew it

If you know anything about me you know I have a bunch of websites the last website I did was in Coney Island four years ago, I spent two years there Photographing the real people of that area, I also did a lot of portfolios on the beach and Under the Boardwalk, These five images right here are pulled from my website topnewyork.com And if you go to my portraitsofnewyork.com website check out Coney Island days pretty cool stuff I just pulled these five images off one of my sites mermaid classes on Tuesday mornings, A weight lifting couple, sunset on the beach, some girl I met an my favorite these fake palm trees all over the place that shoot ice cold water on a hot summer day

Since I have over 300,000 digital images of complete strangers in New York and 24,000 original prints from a span of 30 years of being on the streets not to mention the events parties and soirées I covered, I have over a million images at my disposal, To share with you so I guess on this part of my website I’ll be doing collages like this beside all my published and professional work and of course great uncle Sal’s collection

Anybody who follows me on Facebook or my websites knows I am heavily involved with three book deals originally just one, now broken up into three, The main one is a comedic look at a sexually driven mob family which is great, This place right here the Coral lounge famous mob hang out in Elizabeth New Jersey was right out of Goodfellas except back in the 40s and 50s, as you can see my great uncle Sal‘s name was a neon and by the way that’s the correct spelling of our last name our fake last name, Sal was so good at mind reading and hypnotizing people he convinced two very popular night clubs to have his name in neon The first one is this night club in Elizabeth New Jersey the coral lounge the second one was in Manhattan on sixth Avenue the Hollywood lounge he worked in both these places whenever he wanted to while he was traveling around the world or playing around in his mask photography studio in Manhattan, A bunch of years before Captain Tony even thought about going to Key West he hung out in these clubs in the early 40s getting in all kinds of trouble we have hundreds of great images and stories from these clubs, In both of these locations, Sal had his little mask photography room where he did private readings and other things if he knew you were in the closet or gay he pull you right out he told me Some historical stories

From 1989 through 1992 I worked for mentertainment magazine and studios besides having my own studio, In the three-year period i usually was in two or three different strip clubs a night between New York and New Jersey and during the day I was doing beautiful exotic dancers portfolios at the end of my career I ended up with 20,000 proofs of the whole world of gogo and 35,000 negatives, I even have 25 hours of micro tape because there were so many things going on I couldn’t remember everything the micro recorder actually became my psychiatrist it was good therapy for me I really use to love talking into the micro recorder when I was driving in the car from club to club I would talk about the girls I’ve met and the really wacky customers but the real wacky ones were the ones that worked in the club the managers an bouncers I won’t talk about the owners but they were at top of the list they were all like my grandfather Captain Tony’s that’s how come I got along with them so well I’ve been to that rodeo

There was a great camera store on the corner of Prince and Broadway in Soho, I was a part-time manager there on and off for 10 years I also had a little office there and always kept at least 10 masks hanging in the store, I think they like that, This was an amazing location for taking pictures of people outside but one of the best things was I had access to the roof actually three different buildings roofs, did lots of portfolios up there and at night time we had some pretty wild parties I even slept up there in a sleeping bag a couple times 18 stories up