When you think about parties around NFT NYC what do you think of? You probably think of a bunch of cryptobros getting drunk on bottle service and some other absurd displays of wealth. You probably don’t think about a family friendly paint party in a Greenpoint warehouse thrown by a 19 year old trans artist. Fewo World felt like a real NYC art party, that normally would have required some sort of corporate sponsor, but instead was all paid for by Victor Langlois who became a millionaire at the age of 18 selling his art digitally.

This is (I believe) the fifth Paint Party, with past events taking place last year in NYC and Miami and this year in LA and Denver. Any holder of Victor’s NFTs can attend a party and if you do attend one, you also get an NFT sent to you in return after the party. Fewocious was one of the first artists I ever collected digitally (and the first I ever sold for a profit) and after meeting him at an event last year I have just become a huge fan. Listening him talk about art is an absolutely wonderful thing to behold. He is just so nice and joyful and passionate about his art and his life. I managed to get a fairly affordable piece of his recently and was able to attend the Brooklyn paint party.

The party was one of the most fun events I have been to in a long time. People got to put on paint suits and just let loose on a bunch of canvases. When you walked in you could see the canvases from previous parties. The event happened twice during the day to spread out the people and I was in the second group so you could see the earlier party’s work on the canvases above us. 

Despite going to art school and being forced to take several painting classes, I absolutely cannot paint, but at some point I put on a rubber glove and just started putting handprints on a bunch of the canvases. I also had no intention of photographing this party, but I had no choice. I pulled out my camera thinking I was going to take a handful of photos but I just kept shooting it and before you know I was shooting it like it was an event I was hired to cover. Honestly because I was having so much fun I probably shot better photos than if I was being hired to cover something. I ran into a handful of friends there too which was cool and overall just had a blast for the hour or so I was there. 

Eventually my back was hurting and I had taken all the photos I could think of and decided to escape, but not before walking through a gallery of Fewo’s fashion work, from shoes to clothing to jewelry as well as a bunch of digital displays as well. Oh, I also wanted to mention that there were a ton of kids there and while I don’t plan on ever having children I do think this would have been such an amazing event to take your kids to. Maybe one day when my nephew can walk I will get to go to one of these in the future with him. I mean it was his dad who introduced me to Fewo in the first place… Also there were free burgers from Goblintown, coffee from Richerd’s Interns and copies of the Pride issue of Billboard because Fewo did the cover design. Okay, I think that’s it. Let’s look at some photos…

Ps. My gallery plugin is still messed up so we are using Flickr galleries temporarily until I can fix my website. 

Click here to see all the photos from the Fewo World Paint Party in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

We have a lot to talk about today. Gonna try to make this post make sense for people who hate/don’t care about NFTs and for people who are deep in it, and that’s going to be tough to do, but before I do any of that and get to the photos, we need to talk about abortion. 

These photos would have been up yesterday but I didn’t think it made any sense to post party photos during an historically awful day in American history. We have become a much more progressive country in the 50 years since Roe v. Wade was decided and yet here we are being ruled by a hard right fundamentalist minority. Women should be able to make their on medical decisions and this won’t save lives, it will only kill the poorest women. If someone wants an abortion, they will get one. Well off people will just travel to blue states while the poorest most vulnerable women will be forced to risk their own life to terminate their pregnancy. It’s a fucking nightmare. I donated to two things yesterday and I invite you to do the same. The first is a fund that goes to 92 different organizations, just make sure that if you donate that your phone number is not saved with ActBlue because you do not want hundreds of fundraising texts. The second is Brigid Alliance which does direct action to help women get abortions. They get money to travel and even childcare to look after their kids while they are away. They have a perfect rating from Charity Navigator as well. If you are here for NFTs, I am donating 100% of the profits from this photo to Brigid. 

Now, moving on. Let’s talk about Bored Apes. 

I have very mixed opinions about the Bored Ape Yacht Club and it’s hard to write about this to an audience that has such a wide mix of knowledge/views about what BAYC even is, but I am going to try. Let’s start with the basics. BAYC is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that are made up of randomly generated traits, giving them different levels of rarity and value. They have become one of the most valuable, and definitely the most recognizable NFT collection, and they have birthed several other collections as well. Because of this popularity and massive value, BAYC has become a symbol for everything people hate about NFTs. They see rich crypto bros with stupid monkey jpgs as status symbols and they think the art sucks and they don’t get it and they write off all NFTs as garbage. And the thing is, they aren’t completely wrong. 

I also don’t blame BAYC for this. There are so many garbage NFT projects that have all followed behind BYAC trying to copy their model and have caused so many people to blow so much money chasing the next BYAC. It sucks and PFPs (profile pictures or picture for proof) have made web3 a joke. It’s such a bummer as an artist just trying to make a living with this exciting new technology and people bring up apes and just write the whole thing off. 

And yes, there are a lot of awful people who own Apes. The level of privilege to own a $100k jpg and not sell it is astronomical, but I know many people who have had their lives absolutely changed by these things. They bought them cheap and either sold them for life changing money, or held on to them for the rewards which have also been life changing.  I ran into someone who I knew 15 years ago and he was able to show his artwork in a gallery all because he was given tens of thousands of dollars of “Ape Coin” just for holding on to his ape. 

Okay, so now we need to talk about the claims of racism. There is a professional troll named Ryder Ripps trying to destroy BAYC. I know Ryder a little bit and I actually think he’s pretty interesting as far as an artist. He’s been ripping off NFT collections and changing them a little bit to have a conversation about ownership and copyright and to make some money and PR out of it. I guess you could say he’s the web3 Richard Prince and I am sure both his supporters and detractors would probably enjoy that comparison. He put together a video that went viral recently that was basically a Q Anon video for NFTs claiming that BAYC is a white supremacist organization. It’s really silly and BAYC did a good job of refuting it, and I am sure even Ryder knows it’s all nonsense, but a good troll never admits the troll. They’ve also sued Ryder which is exactly what he wanted and his RR BAYC collection has been skyrocketing in value. 

So no, BYAC is not a secret racist organization, but I do think there is something a little problematic with anthropomorphizing apes, especially when you have traits that are generally associated with black culture. When I first saw BYAC I almost minted one, just because of the Driven By Boredom association, but two things kept me away, the fact that I had just lost some of the first ETH I ever made on a 10k project, and because I thought the apes with grills thing was a little gross. I clearly regret this decision and while I still think Apes are a little corny, the community around them is very impressive and nearly everything Yuga Labs has done as a company has been impressive. 

Which finally brings me to Ape Fest. 

Ape Fest is a festival that takes place around NFT NYC. This is the second one and the first one since the line for Ape Fest 2021 went viral for having a bunch of white dudes making ape noises in line. This year they made the very smart decision to allow plus ones (which is how I got in) and there were a lot more women, and even some non-white people there. A revelation. Web3 clearly skews towards a certain demographic but there are a lot of people trying to fix that and NFT NYC did feel a lot less broy compared to last year. 

I went to Day 4 of the fest, which takes place at Pier 17, down in by the water in the financial district. They had a massive inflatable ape at the entrance and a pirate ship just hanging out with BAYC sails. The party itself was on the roof of a building but the massive amount of money they spent on the surrounding area was not unnoticed. 

The event was pretty impressive and well run and the acts were pretty impressive. There were a lot of real goofy motherfuckers around, but everyone was super nice. As much as I would like to make fun of it, I really did appreciate the invite from one of my NFT collectors who goes by Freecard. He’s a great dude and it was a real experience. 

The party started with an NFT themed rapper named Spottie WiFi. I honestly expected him to look like his Crypto Punk since that’s how I know him. I am not sure his music is for me, but I have been in Spaces and Discords with him and he seems like a good dude. It was very cool to see him perform on this huge stage in front of his people. 

After that Lil Wayne performed and as much as I used to love him, I am not sure that getting the rapper most associated with the MAGA movement is an ideal way to let people know that you aren’t a secret white supremacist group. I still like a ton of his music though so it was at least enjoyable. Towards the end of his set my hurt back started killing me so I sat down and then someone managed to drop an entire whiskey drink on my from above. So that was fun..

After that Snoop came out with Eminem and they debuted their new song which isn’t about NFTs, but features the Apes that they each own. It’s actually a pretty good song & video and the comments on it make me feel that most people don’t even know what BAYC is. Eminem didn’t perform but Snoop did. He mostly was just DJing but he rapped some too. He had a song about Ape Coin which was a little cringe, but otherwise it was pretty fun. I think I’ve seen Snoop 4 times now and you can’t go wrong with that. That being said, he did have a couple strippers on stage with him, and despite most of my friends being strippers or former strippers, I still think it’s kinda a bad look for BAYC when they are trying to let people know they aren’t just a bunch of pale dudes. 

Lastly, and maybe most importantly outside of the whole Handmaid’s Tale situation, is that I didn’t shoot this like it was an event. I didn’t have press access so I didn’t shoot any of the music except a couple wide shots. I didn’t bring my flash so once it got dark I didn’t really shoot. I really just took my camera out because I didn’t want to carry it on my back anymore. My spine is completely fucked so it’s much less painful to hold my camera than carry it on my back. I also was rocking a terrible plastic lens because it’s way lighter than my normal one. So yeah, there aren’t many photos. I took a few of people I met, and some photos of people taking photos because I am working on a phone themed zine. I took some photos of a limbo contest but it was pretty dark at that point and a few other shots randomly here and there. It’s not great coverage of the event, but it did give me a chance to write this 1600 word article about all this stuff.

So TL;DR, abortion should be a woman’s choice, NFTs aren’t all animal jpgs, BAYC is a little bit corny and a little bit problematic, but they have changed lives, have done a lot of great stuff and threw some amazing events. 

Now click here to see a couple dozen photos from Day 4 of Ape Fest 2022 at Pier 17.

Ps. Something is fucked up with my gallery system because my website is archaic, so until I fix it I am using a Flickr gallery like it’s 2007. 

A couple of months ago Jade Baker was in NYC and hit me up about taking some photos. Obviously I was down since the previous times we have taken photos have been really great. The only problem is, my back is endlessly fucked and I was between the giant injections I get in my spine so that I can walk.

Because I couldn’t move, she came over to my apartment. It was in the evening so there was no natural light and honestly I don’t really have any place to shoot so we just took some photos on a white wall. Jade is hot so it’s fine, but they weren’t that great. I figured I could salvage it using the harsh flash on my 35mm SLR and shooting some black and white photos since black and white is cheating and even ugly light looks good. Unfortunately the 20+ year old SLR broke and all the film got exposed to light and the black and white film got fucked up because I am an idiot. This is the price you pay when shooting film, and I have had many rolls ruined over the year, but never twice in the same week. Like that is just insanely bad luck.

We did have some good luck though which is that I recently got another spine shot (it’s actually three shots) and then I went to Miami for 24 hours to see my Caps lose to the Florida Panthers in the playoffs and my flight got in about six hours before I had to be at the game. Jade also just happens to live not too far from the Ft. Lauderdale airport where I flew in. I grabbed a rental car and drove straight to her place. We managed to eat at Margaritaville because I thought that would be hilarious, but it was actually terrible, and then we drove out to some sort of park on a swamp. 

For whatever reason there was no one at the park. I am not sure if it was because of how hot it was or because it was in the middle of the day or what but I think we only saw two people the whole time we were there. That allowed her just to get completely naked in the middle of the park and we shot a bunch of photos. A runner did catch us shooting, but I am pretty sure he didn’t care. It is Florida and all, I am sure he’s seen a lot crazier shit running through a swamp. 

Anyway, TL;DR is that I have not one, but TWO shoots with Jade. The inside shoot is photographically worse, but it’s actually a bigger set and is a bit more graphic, but the out door shoot is really pretty and a lot more fun. So what that mean is that you get the outdoor shoot for free, but you gotta sign up for Girls of DBB for the indoor photos. It’s a fair trade I think. There’s also a couple videos from both shoots on my OnlyFans. Listen, while I can’t walk I gotta make a living somehow. It’s either that or buy my damn NFTs. Oh, just FYI, there are a few photos from the first shoot in this gallery as a preview.

Click here to see a bunch of NSFW photos of Jade Baker in some sort of south Florida swamp!

I have no idea why I go to the NFL Draft nearly every year. It’s a complete mystery. I don’t watch college football so I don’t know who any of the players are and yet I have gone to 10 out of the last 15 Drafts. One of those Drafts was a virtual Draft and I actually was shown on TV via Zoom for that one so I think that actually makes it 11 out of 15.

It all started as a marketing decision. As you may know I run the world’s largest Miami Dolphins fan club, but it didn’t start out that way. Back in 2008 we didn’t even exist yet, we had a small group of Dolphins fans that watched together but we were hoping to find more. The Dolphins had the first pick in the NFL Draft and back then the Draft was in New York every year so we figured it would be a fun experience and maybe we could find some new local Dolphins fans. By 2009 our crew had grown bigger and just before the Draft my business partner Michelle and I set up social media accounts for a new “official” NYC Dolphins fan club called Dolfans NYC. We hadn’t watched a game as Dolfans NYC yet, but we were building. We made flyers and brought them to the Draft to hand out to every Dolphins fan we could find. It was great outreach. 

After that we went to every NFL Draft in NYC using it to try and get on TV, not for the “fame” but so that Dolphins fans at home watching might realize that there was a club of Dolphins fans in NYC and maybe they should type Dolfans NYC into google and try and find us. Our group got bigger and bigger every year. One year a cop stopped me at the Draft and I thought I had done something wrong. Turns out he just wanted to know where he could get a new Dolfans NYC shirt because his old one got damaged in the wash.  

In 2015 the NFL Draft left New York and for the next three years there was no Dolfans NYC representative at the Draft, but in 2018 the NFL introduced something called the “Inner Circle” where a handful of die hard fans from each team would be sat in special seats near the stage where cameras could film them whenever that team would draft a player. The idea was that it would give the team’s biggest fans a great experience while also giving the NFL great footage to use on TV. The Draft was in Dallas that year and half my family lives there so I had a place to stay and Dolfans NYC had a bunch of airline miles so I flew to Dallas, put on as much Dolfans NYC merch as possible and did whatever I could do get Dolfans NYC on TV. I missed the 2019 Draft, but I got on TV for the 2020 virtual Draft. In 2021 I got a chance to go to Cleveland for the Draft. Everyone had to be vaccinated and wear a mask and there were only 12 people allowed per team, but it was still a great experience and I ended up getting interviewed by Slate which was very weird. 

In 2022 the Dolphins managed to trade almost all of their picks to Kansas City and only had one pick during the first two days of the Draft. I probably wouldn’t have gone but unfortunately I booked my ticket to Vegas about a week before the trade so I was kinda stuck. When the Dolphins traded their first round pick I decided not to go to the first day of the Draft and spend it with my girlfriend who had never been to Vegas.

On Day 2 I went down to the Draft a bit early to check out the NFL Experience which features a bunch of different NFL related activations. There are some autograph signings and games where you do football skills and you could see the Vince Lombardi trophy and all the Super Bowl rings. I feel like it would be really fun for a family, but maybe not so much for a middle aged punk rock dude with a herniated disc and torn hip. It’s also pretty much the same stuff as was in Cleveland last year. 

The Draft itself was very Vegas with a bunch of celebrities and Raiders cheerleaders and for some reason Criss Angel.  The famous faces were a good mix of old and new, plus a lot of legendary players. Barry Sanders was a crowd favorite. The older crowd around me were pumped about Donny Osmond but had no idea who MERO (shout out PPP) or Sean Evans were and I am sure the kids there were really happy to see FaZe Rug, Dr. DisRespect and the TikTok duo who I didn’t even recognize. The Dolphins Draft choice was called out by the legendary Larry Csonka who I didn’t photograph because I was too busy cheering for him.  It worked, and once again Dolfans NYC got on the broadcast.

Okay this post is almost 1000 words already and most of you don’t care at all about this so let’s get to the photos, but I do want to mention that I was mostly hanging out and I didn’t have a press pass or anything so I couldn’t bring a long lens so obviously these photos aren’t of the quality they would be if I was actually covering this for work. Still, I hope you enjoy them.

Click here to see all my photos from the 2022 NFL Draft in Las Vegas!

It’s been a minute since I updated and before I get to some pictures I just wanted to do an old school blog and just update you guys on my life and some stuff in the future and all that. 

First of all, let’s talk about my back. As you may know I injured myself last September. I herniated a disc and there’s not really much you can do for that other than physical therapy so I did three months of that. At the same time I got a series of steroid shots to help the pain and for a few weeks here and there I was able to walk for more than a few blocks. Shortly before Christmas I got an epidural and that really helped for about a month, but it also happened to be the same time as I got Covid. I was fine but it cancelled Christmas so after I got better I went and visited my family. So I missed  weeks of PT in the process. The other thing that was happening was that even though my back was better from the shot, I was still feeling pain in my hip. Originally they though my hip was just hurting because of my back but I finally got an MRI and it turned out that I had a labral tear and some other small things wrong with my hip. Luckily there is a more specific treatment plan for that and I started physical therapy again after taking a few months off. I also got a shot in my hip which helped a bit and finally another epidural in my spine yesterday. My hope is that during the next month or so while the pain is bearable I can do a lot to strengthen my hip and my core so I can function once the pain meds run their course. 

Now, the reason I was waiting to get another epidural was so that I could time it with a trip to LA. My brother had his first child and I am very pumped to be an uncle. I am going to meet my nephew Tommy Smith on Sunday. Normally when I go to LA I shoot a ton while I am there but this trip is a bit different. Not only will I be spending time with my family (my parents are there for the first 5 days too) but my girlfriend is coming with me and it’s her vacation and she’s never been to LA so we gotta do a bunch of fun touristy stuff… mostly eating and going to the beach I think. My hope is that I can get a couple of shoots done as well while I am there but who knows what I am going to have time for. We are also going to Palm Springs and the Salton Sea which should make for some good photos. After that we are headed to Vegas and I am going to one day of the NFL Draft and will shoot a bunch of photos there which I don’t think you care about but you never know. The draft is the 29th-31st of April so expect my next update on here around the first of the month. 

In other news my NFT collection Same Old City has almost sold out. Of the 20 photos, 19 of them are gone. I don’t know how many people here care about NFTs but if you do I am airdropping everyone a photo once the collection finally does sell out so might be a good opportunity to get two NFTs for the price of one. My other NFT collection, Juggalos, hasn’t done quite a well. Unlike Same Old City, I don’t think the juggalos appeal to an international audience. I have still sold a bunch of them and will slowly be releasing more over time but they are very affordable and there’s a lot of great shots left. And lastly on the NFT front I contributed some photos to a collection of found slides called Carousel Curated. There are so many amazing photos in this, so if nothing else take a minute to look through them.

And now for the nudes…

A while ago I posted these photos of Chloe Metcalfe and Faith Irving. People seemed to love them. The plan originally was to shoot them during the day but then Faith got really bored the day before and so her and I met up to do some public nudity stuff, but then it started raining so we went back to the hotel and Chloe was there so we all shot and you got the photos you saw last time. 

Well Chloe wanted her own photos and of course I obliged. I came back to the hotel the next day and we shot a bunch. Faith was doing some other shit so she couldn’t shoot, but she did make a little cameo in the background. I have a feeling you will spot it. 

If you wanna see these photos in higher res and with a few extras head on over to Girls of DBB. These pics have been up there already for a few days. I also have some BTS video from this shoot on my OnlyFans too including a video I am going to upload as soon as I hit send on this post. 

Okay there’s a nice long update with a bunch of photos. Enjoy! See you guys at the end of the month!

Click here to see all the photos of Chloe Metcalfe!

Almost a year ago I was in Las Vegas, basically just out there to photograph people, but the people I had lined up totally flaked on me and I ended up only doing two shoots in three days. Those two shoots were with two of my favorite models ever, who of course didn’t flake. I have already uploaded the photos of Heather Vahn, and today you get the first ever photos taken of Charlotte Sartre’s new boobs. I realize that it’s way too late for it to be exiting, but god dammit, it’s still historic. 

Before we do anything else, I wanted to let you know that there is a video on my OnlyFans right now of here taking the bandages off. It’s honestly not nearly as gross as it sounds and it’s kinda ASMRy with the vibe of one of those “strangely satisfying” videos where people pull off the protective covers on screens. 

Now the reason this is so late is two fold, the first is that because of my back injury I haven’t really been shooting and I honestly I have just run out of stuff to post so I am stretching everything out. I do have one upcoming shoot planned, but if you know anyone I should take photos of in NYC which requires me to move as little as possible let me know. The other reason this is late is because I had this idea that we would do her boob reveal as an NFT. So you would buy the NFT and get access to the photos and videos before anyone else. But a few days before we took these photos the crypto market crashed and the NFT market followed and it didn’t seem like a good time. By the time things picked up again she had already posted the videos to her OF and I had decided I wanted my juggalos to be my first photo NFTs. 

I should also mention that these photos have been on Girls of DBB for a week now. The photos over there are in high res and have a number of exclusive more explicit shots. Both Girls of DBB and my OnlyFans are so cheap that they seem very worth it. I wish I could just combine them, but whatever, they gotta be in two places for now. Sign up to them both for the most DBB points. 

Okay, now click here to see the first ever photos of Charlotte Sartre’s new boobs!

Heather Vahn is one of my favorite people. Like honestly I can’t explain how great she is, but she also looks really great naked so she happens to be wonderful to photograph too. It’s honestly a great deal for me as someone who likes nice people and hot people. She’s just a good friend to have like that. She also is a fish keeper which I deeply appreciate. You can see her incredible Flowerhorn at the end of this gallery, but I don’t think you need me to talk about my love cichlids right now do you?

One of my favorite things to do on a photo shoot is just to tell the model to do whatever she would do normally, just maybe do it with less clothes. When I was in Vegas and met up with Heather she was about to sculpt some shit so I said, let’s do that. That sounds amazing. She threw on a Versace robe that probably cost about as much as my rent and started sculpting while I took photos. Her sculpture is honestly impressive and I probably should have taken some photos of it so you could see the final product but I failed at that.

As the light was going down we went on her incredible balcony and took some more photos out there. I decided to save those as exclusive photos just for Girls of DBB so if you want to see a whole bonus shoot on her balcony you gotta sign up for Girls of DBB.

After the light really went down we turned on the light she uses to sculpt with and I shot her with really harsh light that actually made for some great shots. She also happened to be naked at that point so you will probably enjoy those. She didn’t finish the sculpture while I was with her but we did film some videos of her making it that you might dig. I put them on my OnlyFans slowly over the last few months but today I uploaded a full video of her sculpting instructional. It’s pretty great but we never really ended the video. I hit her up to see if she could send me a finished clip for it but she’s out of town so you are just gonna have to imagine. 

Oh and at the end of this shoot she showed me her fish, so you can enjoy that too if you are some sort of aquarium nerd like I am, even if not, it’s probably cool to see nudes lit only with an aquarium light?

Click here to see a bunch of photos of the wonderful Heather Vahn. 

When I first found out about NFTs, almost exactly a year ago, there was almost no photography NFTs being sold. I remember being excited when JN Silva did a drop on Nifty Gateway but it was animated like a lot of the early NFTs. I heard about this guy Justin Aversano doing a project called Twin Flames but other than those two guys, I didn’t see any successful photography projects. In fact, the first NFT I ever made was an animated gif of the logo of this website for our 20th anniversary. I have a weird love for that thing actually, it instantly takes me back to the excitement of first learning about this stuff. 

When I started thinking about what I was going to do for my first photography drop I started coming up with ideas for an animated photo. I spent a long time learning how to do really basic keyframe animation in Photoshop and I spent honestly too much money buying some sound gear and paying an engineer friend of mine to fix the sound I recorded for it, but by the time I was going to release it there was a huge crypto crash in April and it just didn’t seem like a good time. I was going to hold off and wait for my moment. 

That moment came, but not for the animated photos. A few months later Justin’s Twin Flames project had exploded and with it a small NFT photography scene began to rise. Collections of 1/1 photographs started popping up and a lot of them started to do well. Aside from Twin Flames, most of the work was of landscapes and nature. I was excited about this photography movement but not about a lot of the work, it was good, but just not what I was into. I released my collection of juggalo NFTs, which haven’t done great to be honest. I have sold a handful of them, and will keep working on that series slowly over the next year or two, but they were “lazy minted” on OpenSea and I am not going to get into a conversation about specific types of non fungible tokens and contracts, but let’s just say they were less than desirable to some collectors. 

As I was releasing juggalos, there still wasn’t much documentary work that seemed to be doing well, but some street photography did begin to rise. I started seeing work by Monaris, and Billy Dinh, and Dave Krugman and Michelle Viljoen and I was so excited to see this stuff do well. Suddenly photography I liked was blowing up. 

When NFTs first started I made a list of ideas for NFT releases, most of it was zines and books I had already made, along with zines and books I had in my head for the future. When street photography started blowing up I started thinking about my zine Same Old City. SOC isn’t exactly a street photography zine, but it is a collection of images from my first decade living in NYC. It started out as a street photography show called These New York Streets back in 2012. After that it became the zine Same Old City in 2015. It sold out almost immediately and in 2018 I updated it with new photography. That sold out as well. 

So a couple of months ago I started work on this NFT collection. I pulled my favorite shots from the zine into a folder and then just sort of put it on the back burner. There we plenty of excuses for not doing it, but I was going to get to it eventually, I swear.

That’s when Fellowship Trust reached out to me. They had seen some of my work and they “saw potential”. They asked me if I had a collection in the works and I showed them some shots from Same Old City. They immediately  wanted to give me one of their “Futures” grants where they would pay for me to mint my collection on Foundation, which is very expensive. They would also buy 4 of the photos from the collection after it was minted. This meant I had the resources to do the collection the way it was meant to be and I got to work right away. 

Along with the best shots from Same Old City, I went through 15 years of 35mm photography pulling only my favorite shots for this collection. It took me days, but I finally had an edit of about 75 photos. I did my first edit where I pulled 18 photos. I wanted the collection to be somewhere around 20 photos so I had to edit the the other nearly 60 photos down significantly. I think of the original 18, 15 of those made the collection, the rest were incredibly difficult to figure out. I talked to several people about it and did a long phone call with a photographer named Wim VanCappellen who helped curate WHO WE ARE, a group NFT collection (both mine sold on the first day!). Wim was so helpful because he saw my work the same way I did but he was removed from it. He helped me tell the story about New York City I wanted to tell. We made choices that didn’t ultimately have the best 20 photos in it, but the best 20 images to tell that story.

One of the other people I showed the collection to early, was a collector named Jeff Excell. I reached out to him early because I love his collection. The work he loves, I love. I wanted to get his feedback and he told me he was going to let me know if he didn’t like it. Turns out he loved it. He offered me quite a bit of money to sell him one of the photos before it even went on sale which meant so damn much to me and got me so excited to release this to the world. 

So one more question I wanted to answer: Why another street photography collection? Well, it’s because as much as I love the other street photographers I had seen do well, their New York’s just didn’t look like my New York. They were digital, heavily processed images, mostly of Manhattan. They were great, but didn’t tell my story. As I was working on it Omar Robles released a collection called The City which was a lot more raw and when I saw that do well I got really excited. Then even more recently a collection called Enough by Laurent Chevalier came out and was even more raw. Laurent’s work told the story of the black experience in NYC in gritty black and white. It’s fantastic work, but again, it’s not my New York story. I felt Same Old City still had a place. That story still needed to be told. 

So after all that I will just say that Same Old City comes out tomorrow and I haven’t been this excited about a photography project in a long time. Probably since my last book release in 2017. I am just so amped about it. This work is not priced cheap, prices start at .35 ETH which is over $1000, but Foundation is very expensive to mint on, takes a large cut and I am going to pay as many of the people in the images as I can find. I want to keep my work as accessible as possible, but I think this work is priced fairly. There will also be an additional NFT airdropped if this project sells out. It’s a great shot that didn’t quite fit the project, but works well as a stand alone image, but we will keep that a secret for now. 

Now with all that being said, please check out Same Old City on Foundation. This collection was designed to be viewed with four columns, so if you get a chance to look at it on desktop it will look much better. I can’t tell you how long it took me to sequence the collection. Thanks!

When I was in LA in the spring I was hanging out at my friend Kirill’s place when I met a topless woman named Chloe Metcalfe. She had a pretty rad dog I was playing with and a few months later when she was in NYC she hit me up to take photos of her and her friend Faith Irving.

Faith hit me up and told me to meet her at Urban Outfitters because she wanted to shoot some nudes in public before we met up with Chloe to shoot at the hotel. I was down but apparently the Urban Outfitters on 14th and 6th no longer exists so I went to the wrong place. By the time I met her and she finished shopping it was raining and we said fuck it and just went back to the hotel. Because of the rain it was too dark to shoot with just the daylight but we made it work with a mix of the hotel light and outside. 

While Chloe got ready Faith and I took some photos in the room and then Chloe jumped in for some shots and then I shot Chloe and then eventually we went outside for a bit and I took some topless photos of them ordering and eating hot dogs from a street cart. None of those photos are in this gallery, but there is a video of it on my OnlyFans I think. Honestly I don’t remember which videos I posted there already, but if it’s not already up I will post it right after I finish this so it will exist. Either way there will be some video from this shoot up there today. And while I am promoting pay sites, Girls of DBB had these pictures up yesterday and in high resolution. 

So anyway, the next day I went back because we were gonna shoot on the subway but some drama happened and Faith couldn’t shoot but I took some photos of Chloe in the hotel room with the good light. Those photos will be posted here eventually but for now you just get the first two shoots and it’s over 50 photos so don’t give me a hard time.   Okay that’s it. Go look at some n00dz.

Click here to see all the NSFW photos of Faith Irving and Chloe Metcalfe.