About 20 years ago I inherited my great uncle Sal’s estate of thousands of prints negatives and the famous mask collection and thousands of glass slides he was photographing since 1928 until his death in 1995 I spent two years organizing and printing up some negatives that I thought were important a lot of great negative slipped by me like this one too very good looking people I don’t know who they are when it was taken or where it was taken I know I can’t wait to print it up

So here’s the thing I am a little over 6 foot tall 220 pounds back then 30 years ago when I was with the magazine, This guy here his name is the Shield 427 pounds 6 foot seven and seriously trained in martial arts he was the head bouncer at the most dangerous strip club in The Bronx Probably the country probably the country Forget about smelling marijuana you smelled more crack cocaine there lap dances were everywhere If I wasn’t friends with this guy I wouldn’t go to the club

Being A Italian photographer from New Jersey you get to photograph some very interesting parties I’m not saying Italian Mob parties but I was kidnapped twice and they took all my film luckily they didn’t take my cameras anyway this is Carlo from the godfather you know the one that Sunny beat the shit out of with the garbage can lid I finally got to meet somebody important from that movie he turns out to be the biggest asshole snitch in the movie And he was super annoying in real life kind of like me we got along great

Since I’ve been a photographer forever when ever there’s a family get together or a party I’m the guy who takes the pictures this is one of my greatest family portraits original jersey shore Italians My mom side it’s at my cousin Cheryl an Sids House on the Jersey shore that’s right where those loud jersey shore Italians you heard about, my mom originally had 12 brothers and sisters no half brothers and sisters all original my grandparents Virginia and Joe had 12 kids together can you imagine feeding 12 children three times a day of course some of the older ones helped out this photo right here I took is 16 years ago at last count I have 112 cousins on that side of my family The funny thing is not everybody’s in this photo some didn’t make it and there’s a bunch in the kitchen drinking wine and eating meatball Parmesan sandwiches I photographed thousands of parties in my career never had so much fun I had a family Italian Jersey shore barbecue miss so many people

Key west Florida 42 years ago that’s right I’m old this was the first year I started taking photos and actually selling them to Kennedy studios I’ve already published nine postcards before I turned 22, what’s unique about this sunset is it’s not Mallory Square it’s Simonton Street, back then a bunch of us locals would meet there every night for our special Sunset ritual smoke some weed do a couple bumps we were too close to the water to do lines bumps were good though people even brought containers with margaritas we also met there during the day to dive off the pier and swim against the current, I published a lot of images from that pier, In 1979 Lisa and I went on our first date there I had to introduce her to my friends show her off, if you go there now my aunt Josie has a tiki bar there laggerheads stop by there and watch the sunset have a cocktail and tell my aunt Josie Keith sent you

My digital library has over 65,000 photos on it I edited those out of a quarter of 1 million that’s the 30 years I spent in New York City photographing street people, parties, events, and soirées Some people say that’s the largest website out there with that many photos from one artist, I haven’t met anybody yet to match my numbers or my crazy stories, thousands of my photos are little memory chips for me like this photo right here I would stand on the corner of eighth Avenue and 42nd St. one of my favorite spots sometimes standing there for 2 or 3 hours, I would see this person around from time to time didn’t know if it was a man or a woman I knew they knew I was there and I knew they were there one time I noticed This person kept on walking from corner to corner all four corners for over an hour I had to take the shot I wanted to do it so they wouldn’t see me I was caught an the persons in the long black leather jacket hat and glasses just stood there and stared at me like Darth Vader, I stood my ground I didn’t wanna walk away I didn’t stare at them the way they were staring at me I just kept on taking pictures using my peripheral vision to make sure they didn’t shoot me or something this went on for 20 minutes, Throughout the years I would run into this person one time I gave them a card and they said thanks I have met hundreds and hundreds of people in the streets of New York that just walk around there’s lots of them I think I was one of the few photographers who had balls enough to photograph them maybe 50 years from now somebody will be discovered I think I was one of the few photographers who had balls enough to photograph them maybe 50 years from now somebody will be discovered In my collection

A lot of things go Into into being a portrait photographer first you have to capture The beauty of that person this portrait right here was easy she was very attractive I worked for a studio called Lorsten and Thomas one of the biggest high school college your book companies on the East Coast Located located In New Jersey that’s what I did when I had to leave Key West I was the guy who photographed The principles teachers and students beside all the sporting events and frat parties, my specialty was making unattractive people look the best they can so that people would buy big blowups from the studio I’ll brag I was great at it, did that for two years before I opened up my own studio and then my true talent was discovered my job was to make faces of seduction for all type of ads for gogo bars 900 numbers those sexy ads in back of magazines they say I became one of the best at it, like my great uncle Sal photographing thousand of those good looking guy actors he was much better than me and I learned a lot from him

In 1986 I opened up Terracina West Studios I also got involved with the evil wicked nightlife in New York and New Jersey with a bunch of different magazines and 900 numbers, I had to make a nitch for myself some how, There were way too many photographers out there an Studios, sunset photos weren’t going to Work for me up north like it did in Key West These two gave me a call she was a stripper and he was a male dancer and they were getting married they let me do their engagement pictures these right here and I did their crazy Wedding party 1988 Working for those magazines got me a lot of wild Photo shoots that’s why I got successful I am a decent photographer but a hell of a salesman

After taking photographs in Key West for seven years of palm trees sunsets and little houses it was time for me to move up north not by choice I really can’t complain I had an unbelievable five years and the most disasters two, For every plus there is a minus in life anyway when I first got to New York City 1983 the World Trade Center totally amazed me I use to pull off on the side of the road in Jersey and take a picture, this one was taken off the Jersey turnpike in Secaucus I ended up selling this photo for many years it was super imposed on tiles when the world trade centers came down I stop selling them, when the towers came down I was on my way to New York City to get my equipment to photograph down there the train from Jersey was totally delayed and I got there late if I got there on time I would’ve been one of those photographers who gets up close and I would’ve been dead never forget 911