One of those funny stories I was on the second floor of my friends wife’s photography studio in Westfield New Jersey the downstairs used to be a dance hall called Arcadian Hall Sal actually performed there in the 40s And now we were doing a photo shoot 60 years later with the masks where ever Sal performs he always took a couple masks and hung them In 2002 we did a cable show at this location and a photo shoot
In the mid 30s through the late 40s my great uncle Sal threw a new addition to his act he would hypnotize people he was taught by three different hypnotist he always had a giant masks in the background just for the effect I ran into a box of images that said people I have hypnotized these are large format negatives I believe I’m looking into their soul or something something is different
To me what makes this category fascinating is my great uncle Sal shot black and white since 1927 that’s what he got his first camera and he stayed with it till his death in 1995 if you do the math that’s around 70 years of taking pictures that’s why there is boxes and boxes of thousands of negatives this came out of a box that said Joni Rocco‘s party 1943 I’m going to print it up one day
If you want to know more about what’s going on with her book go back to published articles on this website very interesting story
Bob Kennedy from Kennedy studios in Key West published this poster for me He sold it in his nine locations Key West,Miami, the Bahamas, Provincetown, I sold it all it was the Jersey shore it was my money making baby for one year and a half Back in the late 70s and early 80s Kennedy studio Published All my work
This was one of the underground ads That was in Chicago when Sal performed for his fathers cousin Frank Costello who operated this nightclub also the Peacock Lounge
35 exotic dancers I published in 1989 also did their portfolios in my studio that year nude and semi nude it was my first year in the business I am eventually tripled those numbers in the 90s
What’s very unique about this category is most images on it most people have never seen before there is actually over 1000 photos with some pretty funny interesting stories you also get to witness the birth of our book This photo was taken 1949 at Sal’s mask photography studio he actually made these masks in 1937 For the New York 1939 worlds fair yes they have special powers for 60 years they were used in Sal’s mind reading acts and hypnotizing people The three masks in the middle are use them in my studio 20 years ago for background images Lisa and I actually have them in our mask room here in Florida with 40 other ones if you stay on this category you will see over a thousand images with some pretty funny stories, Gangsters exotic dancers burn west girls from the 30s very interesting New York characters in Key West in the 60s and 70s it’s a very interesting category on the site
You have opened up a category on this website that is very unique there is over 1000 photos with very funny interesting stories The three photographers involved are all related my great uncle Sal my grandfather Captain Tony and myself Keith not only are we all publish photographers over a span of 90 years we documented our very interesting lives at one time was booked as the world youngest mind reader during the late 20s and 30s he also had mask photography studios in New York as far back as 1933 and my grandfather the wild man himself was a mob guy from Elizabeth New Jersey Who fled to Key West and became a famous smuggler of rum and guns out of Cuba he also bought the original Hemingway bar and became mayor of that crazy island and me I am a published Photographer For over 42 years specializing in the evil wicked nightlife from Key West to New York I actually published over 1200 exotic dancers you’ll see some on this category
Between my great uncle Sal and myself we have covered over 90 years of New York City he had his first studio there in 1932 he was only 21, in 1985 I started portraits of New York between both of us we have acquired close to half of 1 million images my image bank alone portraitsofnewyork.com Has 65,000 images on it that I edited out of a quarter of 1 million my queen uncle Sal has thousands of large format negatives that were never developed for a printed that’s what this category is about besides for published photos from around the world and Key West This category you’re on right now has over 1000 images with some very interesting funny stories attached to each one and let’s not forget my grandfather Captain Tony from Key West Images I have those also you’ll see them throughout this category you are witnessing the birth of a very interesting book