Castro to Christopher with Nicholas Blair

Jonathan [00:00:02] Welcome to Not Going Quietly the podcast where we inspire growth. Be biases and get into all sorts of good trouble with co-hosts Jonathan Beale and Britt East.

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Jonathan [00:00:19] So get ready to join us for some courageous conversation, because not going quietly starts right now.

Britt [00:00:28] You're welcome to not going quietly. The podcast for outraged optimists and heartbroken healers all over the world where we surface life searing truth in the name of radical togetherness. I'm your host, Britt East, and I'm here with a fantastic featured guest. I can't wait for you to meet him. So let's dive right in. Nicholas Blair has worked internationally as a photographer and cinematographer for organizations including Care, the United Nations, HBO and PBS Television. His filmmaking projects include the documentary America's Culture of Crash, about the rural American sport of Demolition derby and our Holocaust Vacation A journey through Poland with his mother and family, revisiting her Holocaust experiences there. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts and Jerome Foundation. His photographs are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art International Center of Photography, Brooklyn Museum and Bibliotheque National in Paris. Nick, how. How are you today? Welcome to the show.

Nicholas [00:01:36] Thank you so much, Britt. I'm doing fine. Thank you for having me.

Britt [00:01:40] Yeah, it's so great. I had the great fortune to see you presented by book company out here in Seattle when you were touring your latest photography book, and I was just blown away. I think your book is so beautiful that I knew I wanted to share it with as many people as I can. So let's talk some about it. Your latest book is called "Castro to Christopher: Gay Streets of America 1979 through 1986." And, you know, coming up, those in our audience watching the video version of this episode. We'll get to see some sample images from the book today as we discuss them a little later on. And for those of you on the audio portion, we'll walk you through that as well so you won't feel left out. And you can you can watch them on his website on your own time. And of course, we want to include Nicholas's website in the show notes so the rest of you can purchase the book, preview some images, see some of his other work, etc.. And like I was saying, I've been totally captivated by your work. How would you describe this book to the audience?

Nicholas [00:02:42] Well, I am trying to present a walk through a place in time through my photographic sensibility, so I'm using photography as a nonverbal medium. And it's not that easy. I mean, not all of my work is specific to one place, and it's a traditional, quote unquote, street photographer. I'm interested in walking around and just observing and seeing what's going on. In some sense, it's it's a continuation of my first passion, which was traveling. So, you know, when you travel and you go to a new place and you're just all eyes and you just want to see as much as possible and you're just totally absorbed and you don't have to think about what you have to do at home, like walk your dog and you're just going around. What my first trip, which was an extended walkabout through Latin America, I didn't have a camera, but once I got a hold of a camera and started photographing, it's a similar sensibility. You walk around, you see something that's interesting. It's a way of saying yes to something that you see, and it's sort of a combination of a found object carving a rough gemstone and serendipity, because when you're not in control of what's going on, you're you're faced with what you see and trying to capture it in a certain way that becomes more interesting, I would have to say, than the actual subject itself. So way back when I heard Gary Winograd, who was, you know, a very, very well known photographer of the last century and has shaped photography in a lot of ways. And he I thought he was a little bit flippant when people asked him, why do you take photographs? And he said, well, to see what something looks like as a photograph. And that seemed like, you know, well, what are you really saying? But in actuality, when you think about it, if he wasn't a sort of flipping New Yorker and I will try not to be that it really is a question of seeing how things look as photographed and they translate from a three dimensional reality into a two dimensional image. And in that image, some things are included, other things aren't. You're freezing a moment in time which elaborates, you can then look at it could be a subtle gesture that is just fleeting for a quarter of a second, but yet it's captured and therefore becomes iconic in a certain way. So. You see people doing that with their cell phones or they're taking pictures with their camera all the time. They just want to look at it. Had it look like even though we've seen so many pictures, there's still a mystery. And that is the magic of photography, of how things translate and how certain images can become very good, even though they're very simple subject matter and other images which can be very beautiful like a sunset. My God, one more sunset image. Do we really have to look at that? Right. And also, you know, my criteria a little bit is you have to live up to exceed the expectation of what's in front of you. So if it just is it better than the sunset? Well, you know, maybe if you're Ansel Adams and you're doing nature, you can do that. But generally speaking, it's not. So that is sort of how my, you know, my philosophy of photography is. And so when I started photographing in Castro Street, it was really began sort of earnestly after the murder of Harvey Milk and Bear Mosconi, because at that time I was living in a hippie commune, maybe one of the last ones in San Francisco. We were we were diehards, but we also had an art gallery and it was a great place just to be able to get into art. And and we were all involved in art one way or another. And in the fall of 1978, you know, tragically. Harvey Milk and there. Scotty were murdered. And this was this was a wake up call. We had a certain amount of intersectionality between the gay community and our commune in other ways that I possibly tell you about. But even as long haired hippies addressed, you know, whatever, we could be wearing sarongs or anything in the street, we still felt that or I felt San Francisco was like a free place and an open and accepting place. And I'd been to other places that weren't like that. So when the murders took place, it was very, very shocking to all of us. And a wake up call that there were actually some very nefarious undercurrents in conservative parts of the city as well. But it was shortly after that that I started to go down to cover and photograph at some of the protests that were going on. I had done some other photographing before, some other events in the gay neighborhoods, not specifically going to those neighborhoods to photograph. But once I got involved and started taking pictures at these events, I really liked what I was seeing and experiencing. It was just a very, very celebratory as well as it was a movement. It was it was a political social movement that was happening in front of me. And by the time I got there, which was it was probably early 1979 to start photographing, there already seem to be some sort of a detente between the police. I don't really know what was going on, but nobody was. There was no head bashing or anything like that. They were standing around and so there was a very celebratory atmosphere. People were really able to be themselves. And the more time I spent in the Castro, the more interesting it became. You just didn't know what would be what could happen. All of a sudden, walking down a street could be three drag queens or there could be a couple of little old ladies in the neighborhood passing those three drag queens and reacting to them. It was just a very, very interesting tableau as compared to, you know, just a regular neighborhood. Residential neighborhoods in particular could be very, very slow areas to photograph. You're waiting around. Somebody walks their dog. But here, all of a sudden, maybe somebody is walking their dog. And it could be, you know, a little Chihuahua dressed in a leather outfit with a little leather motorcycle hat. So so there was there was really a lot going on. And I just felt myself drawn more and more to, you know, spend time there and photograph. Around that time, for a little while after about 1980, my brother, who'd been living in Brazil because part of the nature of our our commune and collective was that we were also interested in in traveling. And so I had gone to India the year before for about nine months to photograph and wander back through Europe. And he was sort of decided he was going to go to South America. So he actually went for a couple of years. And when he returned, he was very interested in Indigenous culture and specifically Tobias Schnabel, who was an anthropologist, the anthropologist who lived in the Amazon with some gay tribes and also in this epic river of New Guinea. And he wrote a long article about him I think should about actually lived right near Christopher Street and my brother because we're originally from New York. When he came back to the to the city he went to visit him and he interviewed him. And he by the way, he is great book Keep the River on Your Right. It's just a great read that he wrote about his time living. Have have you seen that book? It's very it's wonderful. So my brother was, you know, shopping this article around in The Advocate became interested in it, which is, of course, a national gay magazine. And he was looking at my photographs and saw what I was doing, said why do you sense a and maybe maybe they'll be interested. And, you know, we were all sort of starving artist types and the idea of getting, you know, some work published, of course, was fantastically interesting to me. So I sent some pictures in and sure enough, they published some. And then I also got connected to I think he was also had some other articles that he had done about the gay scene in Nicaragua, actually on his way going through South America. And he was also publishing in gay Hebdo Pi, which was a French monthly magazine. And they were also interested in the work. So that was very encouraging. So I went into the gay area. Reporter which was a local gay magazine weekly, little bit like the Village Voice was in New York and I just walked in a small office and I just showed them a stack of 5 or 7 photographs. And I said. You'll be interested in any of these. And the editor looked through them very carefully, said, Yes, we would like to do a weekly photograph photography column. What do you want to call it? And so I thought. How about Castro to Christopher Street? And at that time, I'd already been photographing a little bit on Christopher Street in New York because I was coming home. My family was living in New York and it was from New York. And so, of course, naturally I would come to New York City and I would I would spend time down there as well. So that really was, you know, lit a little bit more of a fire under me in terms of, well, now I have a readership. I really have to cover this properly. I made trips to Provincetown and also out to Fire Island. And, you know, of course, I was interested in the, you know, the events that would happen in the gay community, like, you know, pride or Halloween. These were big events, but just everyday life as well. So I actually happened to have a copy of this is an advocate. I was in two of their issues and it's I'm showing it to you. I know some of your readers are not going to be able to see this, but it was it's so wonderful when they're really more a magazine in this world of it. It was just a so sad that there are so few of them because this is from 1984 and one year up here is a it's just a spread of about seven of my images from different scenes on Castro Street and from there as well. And it was interesting because in this I think this was a second edition that I was in, but they interview me a little bit and it says that I was interested in making a book. So this is 1984, and of course, this is the book didn't come out till 2023. So that's that's a little gap of time. I wanted to call it tentatively. It was going to be called the gay 80s, so I'm glad I stuck with my original my original title, but it was in my mind it at that point, you know, to do something with you, to you. And I've always wanted to do a book of photographs because. Photography is so suited to be published because it's such a close rendition to what a print really looks like. And you can put, you know, an entire collection in this case or 128 images that are all in this one volume. So so that's how the project got started. And just very interesting actually, also to look through this old Advocate magazine, because there are some things that I notice in here that they wrote about, which was there was a case before the Supreme Court whether or not gay men would be allowed to cruise and cruising was illegal in like half the states. There were, of course, other, you know, sodomy laws and all kinds of stuff. And it just unbelievable. That in 1984 that was coming before the Supreme Court.

Britt [00:14:58] Wow. I had not heard that. Now, I'm a student of gay history, and that's a new one on me. So I'm I'm interested to go read more about that. That's a I had not heard that. So for the people listening on audio, he's holding up a copy of The Advocate from 1984, which is just an amazing artifact. And he was previously showing some of like he was saying, a photo spread. And it's just absolutely incredible. What a gift. Nick, would you toggle over to sharing some of your images and sharing your screen? And while he gets that going, listeners all kind of set it up for you. So like I referenced previously, Nick has a photography website out there. It's Nicholas Blair photography.com and we'll put that in the show notes so you don't have to scramble and jot it down. It'll it'll be easily read. And as part of that website he has teaser images of his photography books. And in some of the photos inside just, you know, just several of them. And so we're going to walk you through some today. It's something we've never really done on this show before. So I'm really excited about it because, you know, picture says a thousand words, as they always say. And so it's like, let's get straight to it rather than just theorize about photography, let's actually look at some of the images. So you should be able to see if you're watching this on YouTube, you should be able to see the actual images. And Nick is going to walk us through them. What you're seeing, he's going to describe them for you, the folks who are on audio only, he's going to describe them for you so you guys can enjoy this as well. And he'll talk about some of those motivations, some of the composition, what's going on there, etc.. So, Nick, take it away.

Nicholas [00:16:39] Well, thank you. This first image was taken at a Pride celebration in San Francisco, and it depicts an older man, well-dressed, in a hat who people have commented, looks a lot like William Burroughs, the poet. And he has is he crossed and he's wearing a tie and a jacket and looks very proper And right next to him, a little bit closer to the camera are two men that look like they're almost statues in embrace or looking into each other's eyes very lovingly and their arms are entwined around each other. And the question is, well, first of all, there's not no one's looking at the parade, which is ostensibly in the background. And so the two men are focused on each other. And what I like about the picture is the ambiguity and the question of what this older guy is doing there. Did he jest as Jim Farber, who wrote the introduction, as describe some people just got off the bus at the wrong stop, or did he make an effort to go down to the pride parade and and be be a witness. So it's it's one of the things that I like about photographs to be they're very specific about what they're about on one hand, but on the other hand, they don't really tell you what's going on and leaves a lot to interpretation. The next picture is at an insta bank. A couple of leather boys are getting money out of the bank and it's very kind of normal thing to do. Actually, at that time, I think inside the bank it only been out or cash machines were very new thing. And there they are just doing their regular business, but they're wearing leather chaps and leather vests and and have tattoos and leather hats. And so this is just the kind of thing that you might see in the Castro walking around. And next to them is a person, another fellow with his back turned and he's also getting money. So it's just it's just sort of a normal thing, but something you wouldn't normally see in other parts of the town.

Britt [00:19:03] Fantastic.

Nicholas [00:19:07] This this next picture has a woman is looking directly into the camera and she's actually on the corner of Castro and Market Street. And back over one shoulder are two men kissing. And back over the other, another shoulder are two men hugging. And there's another woman behind her. And both the women are looking directly at me. It has sort of soft light coming in from the side. And again, what I like is it first of all, it shows what could be happening on a street corner at any particular time, but also the ambiguity of, you know, who are these women? You know, what are they doing? What's really going on here? And it's just sort of a beautiful tableau. Walking away on the left side is is another gentleman with a leather jacket. This next photograph is of two women kissing each other and fairly close up about a waist shot. They have their arms around each other. It has strong light coming in from the side. It's late afternoon light. This is a very typical time for photographers to go out because things look more interesting at that time. And it's very it has a very erotic overtone. One woman is actually sucking a little bit on the other woman's lips. One woman looks like she is a woman of color and the other is is not. This next photograph was taken on Halloween in San Francisco. It shows two quite young men locked arm in arm walking down the street. One who's looking. They're both looking directly into the camera. The one in the middle is wearing a necklace and is wearing false tits. And one is up and one is down and also wearing a wig and has quite curly hair and a very soft mustache, but very deep, dark, penetrating eyes. And her partner has a what do you call that kind of muscle? It's not a handlebar, but it's a straight. It's a very big mustache. It kind of wraps down to the chin and he's just wearing a very thin leather vest and also also looking into the camera behind them to the side is a man leaning against the store front. And another man on the other side is wearing sort of a bozo wig and some sort of a I don't even know what you call that garment, but it's not a shirt. It's sort of a feminine dress. But and they're just walking down the street now. Back in those days, there was no Halloween parade. And it's just it's kind of unbelievable how big Halloween has gotten to this point. I mean, I've been to the last few always in New York, and it's there's two rows of police barricades and you can't even, you know, cross the street 20 blocks. And back in 1982 when this was taken, it was just people walking around on Castro Street. And later when I went and photographed other Holloway's on Christopher Street, they're just people just walking around and you can go anywhere and photograph and everything seemed a lot more casual. Now, to really get into the scene in New York, you need a press pass and it's just way more formalized. But it also does show how this event has taken over and captivated the American culture.

Britt [00:23:05] Absolutely. Oh, this is my favorite. This is my favorite photograph in the entire book, So I'm really glad you're showing it.

Nicholas [00:23:15] Now. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. This is just the kind of thing that you could see on Castro Street or Christopher Street, for that matter. It's three men with with substantial mustaches in drag looking, looking very beautiful and just posing for the camera and giving a very penetrating gaze. The the the lady in the middle and they have very big earrings and also a large the the lady in the foreground. I'm not sure do we call them ladies to call the men, but they're have a very large flower in above the ear and also some sort of chiffon wrap around a see through webbing. And this was why it was such a wonderful place to photograph, because this could just come around. They could come around a corner. Just unusual to happen. It was it was much more fun and interesting than sort of a regular residential neighborhood. Um, let's see. The next photograph shows a couple of woman in leather. It looks like. Well, one woman is embracing the other woman from behind and has her hands wrapped around her and is putting one hand underneath her vest, her leather vest. And the woman who is being embraced from behind looks like she actually has her hands down the pants of the woman behind her. And she has. Handcuffs and a key chain. And they they look very, very stylish with sunglasses. And it's it at a the Folsom Street fair, I believe. And there's a woman in the background with a skinny taking a photograph of something we're not sure what. But you do see some of the fear behind them. The next photograph was was in the West Village and it was taken, if not actually at night, close to night. It's it's pretty dark. And there they're two men in a very beautiful Cadillac car with the door open just sitting there. One is is wearing just a T-shirt and the other has a much bigger shirt on. But there is somebody. The top is down. It's a convertible and there is somebody drinking in bare feet, sitting on the windscreen above them and looking at the camera there. They're all three of them are looking at the camera. And behind are a couple of guys standing on some stoops in the West Village.

Britt [00:26:26] Hmm.

Nicholas [00:26:31] This next photograph has two men. Kind of side hugging. So you see their fronts and they almost look like butterfly wings that are opened up and they're on the left. And behind them, there are three men that are standing, looking around, wearing they're all three of the men are wearing blue jeans and and t shirts or actually one has a hoodie. And I just may be right here. I'll just read what Marvin after he wrote a little thing for the back of the book. Yeah. It. Call them street photographs, if you like, but there are unexpectedly compelling and richly revealing. Made it a crossroads of desire. They're all about every day erotic arts and history, the politics of looking and the rewards and consequences of being seen. So the guys in the background are looking and they're looking around. And even though they're looking for something different than what I was looking for at that point, we're we're were I was out there looking around and they're looking around. And there was a lot of looking around going on. And what I find very amusing, of course, is the t shirt which says v t v vini, which is a take on i.

Britt [00:27:58] I came.

Nicholas [00:27:58] I came. I came. I. I saw. I. Well, the weather. The way it reads. This ice I saw. I conquered. I came instead of. I came. Ice draw. I can't throw. Good. So it's. It's the camp. You know, there was a certain style of camp that. Very, very humorous. And. Then this this next picture is of a black man holding a beer, smoking a cigaret. And he also looks like he's almost out of a Marlboro commercial, but he's wearing a black motorcycle jacket and he's looking in profile. And in the background you see people that are sort of hanging around an open, an open bar and he's very handsome looking guy and he looks like he's almost posing. But I don't think he I think he was always almost posing. And this The last photograph I have here is of two men in a passionate embrace. They both one is completely topless. The other has is just a little vest on. One is holding the other face as he kisses them. And the one is being Kiss is actually holding the other man's nipple who seems to have an erection in his in his pants. And I find it just very passionate and erotic photographs and has a very strong light and just intertwining of their arms around each other. It it really expresses a feeling of the touch.

Britt [00:29:51] And there's overtones of dominance and submission in this one that are pretty strong. Yes. Nick, thank you for sharing these images. It's so kind of you. These are just a taste of the images in next book, and I encourage everybody to purchase it. Check it out. It's absolutely captivating. And like I keep saying, you can find where to buy it on Nicholas Boyer photography.com and we'll give you the link and make it really easy for you. But back to the work. You know, one of the things I was struck by is that, of course, I can't help but think, you know, these are all identified picture by picture with a time and a place. So they're very grounded in time and place, which is way before the Internet when, like you alluded to at the beginning of the show, so much of queer life was centered around cruising and bar hopping and everything happened in real time on the streets as opposed to asynchronously on a smartphone app. Now, Nick, you and I are gentlemen of a certain age, so we don't know how this works, but apparently there are smartphones with apps on them and you use them to avoid meeting in real time. And so the world has just changed dramatically. So there's something really special about this book because it's harkens to a time gone by. There is an immediacy to the experience, which, you know, means there's an immediacy to the images that you capture. We're not being coddled by our mutual, disembodied anonymity. We're not hiding behind these screens. You know, maybe we were dancing with one eye on the door, but at least we were dancing. We weren't just swiping. And, you know, it's like you had to be there, literally, Like the guy who wrote this beautiful foreword to your book said, that's really striking. You literally had to be there, whereas now it's like you can be anywhere. And so there's something so powerful in this and it's almost feels like a gift to the queer community. And I you know, you talked about your journey at the beginning, Nick, but I can't help wondering. This is very atypical for us. And I bet I'm not alone in this feeling. I bet a lot of people in the audience don't know a lot of straight guys who would devote time and energy to getting to know our culture and presented in a way that is celebratory, empowering, full of wit and wisdom, not putting us on a pedestal, not coming in with an agenda, not trying to speak for us or read our mind, but observing. And I kind of don't understand, like how you got here and like, you know, you described the zeitgeisty of the moment and, you know, your literal journey, but it's like, where did this sense of openness come in, you as an artist? Was it you know, do you do you have queer friends and relatives? Do you like, you know, how did you who are you? How did you get here? How did you do this?

Nicholas [00:32:54] Well, thanks for asking me that. I'm happy to talk about that. I do want to give a shout out just to Jim Farber who did write.

Britt [00:33:02] Yeah.

Nicholas [00:33:03] And incredibly, because I am not gay and and even though I am observing what's happening in the street and there is a lot more going on off the street and Jim can talk about that and does talk about this and just a fantastic introduction that I was just so happy to get. He's such a great writer and he's so honest and open and he lived through the time as well. So that was that was really, really wonderful of him. And when we were at the commune, the whole hippie thing, there was a certain intersectionality between the hippie thing and the gay thing. Our general philosophy was, you do what you want. You are just there are no rules. In fact, our commune had no rules, which is probably why the commune only lasted so many years because it was a little chaotic. But just to give you a little bit of insight, for example, when I got there, my. Brother. The way the communal bath is, is it was it was like a shared. It's not a flat because it was it had a store front. It had it actually had a back carriage house that had been fixed up. And so there a bunch of art students from the San Francisco Art Institute living there. And when I walked in, this was in 1975, and it was very early February, and I noticed there was a pumpkin on a shelf in in this storefront. And by that point, it was only a half a pumpkin. And you can imagine it was put up there for Halloween and a few months had gone by. And the thing is, when you souffle down half a pumpkin and that gives you a sort of a sense of what was going on. But a woman who was living there with her, with her girlfriend, her name was Strutt. We called her Strutt. Her full name was Nancy Goodin. She had a Camino vehicle, like a which was like a little pickup truck on the back. It's not a pickup truck, but it's it's a Camino. I forget who makes it, but I think it's a Ford. And anyway, we would go dumpster diving and somebody would give the alert like, oh, looking back of Safeway supermarket, there's all this food, come get it or something else. We pick up furniture. And she had the one vehicle. Well, she's the one who started the gallery and she lived there with her girlfriend. I don't. Whatever. She was just a person living there. I didn't really think much about, you know, her, her sexual orientation. And she decided to create the gallery. One day she wrote Ancient Currents Gallery with Motor Oil. And we had been slowly cleaning up this storefront. And that was the beginning of Ancient Urns Gallery. And she hung up a bunch of artwork. And of course, my brother says it took two years of painting to cover that motor oil. So there was a certain intersectionality going on there. And I could go a little further and explain that. At one point my brother was making a movie. This was also pretty early on. The movie was called Sammy Delirium and he. Was using me. I was sort of his muse. And I'd been in other films of his even when he was in high school, he'd want me to do this or that, and I'd be like, okay, whatever, you know? So the scene was that I was playing a sort of deranged Coke dealer who was trying to sell coke to raise money to pay for a film which ostensibly was not really how it was working. Well, I have some money. He might have finished the film, but I was playing in a scene that I was in a bathtub and he was filming me and I was in sort of a delirium and talking about my travels in South America, where I had traveled and about, you know, cocaine and this and that. But meanwhile, it was my birthday in the gallery. There was going to be a birthday party for me all in real time. And so when I heard Sammy, which was my stage name, Sammy Delirium, the candles are melting on your cake. I was to get out of the bathtub stark naked and walk out into the gallery where there were about, you know, 15 or 20 people that my brother had put together for this particular scene. So being a dutiful, younger brother and taking my acting job seriously, I got out of the bathtub completely dripping wet, walked out into the into the gallery storefront and and everyone sang Happy Birthday. And at that point, I noticed that my brother had also had two very, very attractive drag queens that he had brought in. I don't really know where he met them or how he cast his his scene, but one of them was named Dawn and she was a blond. And they were both they're both very attractive. And after that little happy birthday, she came over to me and whispered in my ear, Can I go down on you? And I was, you know, I'm the scene. So I'm like, you know, whatever you want to do, you know, go for it. So we had a little scene there. Not a whole lot happened with 20 people standing around. But subsequently, my brother showed he did an edit. He showed the movie in New York. And to my chagrin, my parents were invited to see. And so this scene comes out and I can't even look at it. And I don't even know what my mother is. But it was that was the most embarrassing part of it. But this was it just gives you a flavor of what was going on and anybody could really do anything. I mean, in fact, also, you know, a very, very, very close friend of mine, Larry Bear, who took me under his wing and taught me a lot about photography when I first got there. And he was a close friend of my brother's, and he had studied with Gary Winograd, who I mentioned before, a very important street photographer and photographer and 20th century. He was. In fact, I didn't really know know his sexual orientation until, you know, later. He he did he did have Aids. He came down with Aids and very sadly, died in 1990. But, you know, we would not necessarily be photographing in the gay areas together, but we could be photographing in a garage. We would just go out photographing. And that's just what we did. We just hung out and we we cruised all over California. I mean, we went down to L.A., went to Santa Cruz, and then he eventually got he got a fellowship. It was part of the Guggenheim, I think. And then he was in New York, and I would be back in New York. And I remember we just going out on the pier and in New York City. Which had a much different vibe, I have to say, than San Francisco. But this beautiful, beautiful pier, which they unfortunately have. Yeah. Have completely gentrified. But the light was so fantastic at the end of the day. And it wasn't just a gay thing out there, although it was very much a gay thing out there. But, you know, people were just it was just a great place. I mean, as a photographer, you look for great light, you look for things that are going on. And Larry and I were out there many, many times. So there just was a lot of intersectionality between the hippie thing and the gay thing. And it was just like, you know, we there's just no judgment. It's just whatever whatever people want to do. And I just recognized it sort of intuitively that this was some sort of social political movement. And I mean, partially I had traveled at that point already, had probably traveled to about 25 countries, and I'd never seen anything like it. And it was just. It was just a very interesting place to be and a very happening place to be.

Britt [00:40:56] And you captured this moment was bookended by gay liberation on one end and the dawn of Aids on the other. So it's this really special time that you've memorialized. And I couldn't help thinking when I you know, when I was first going to a book, what would you like straight audiences to understand about the people that you photographed?

Nicholas [00:41:22] Well. I don't know if I could really put it just we're all human beings, you know, We're just all human beings. And this is what was so attractive about the scene then is people just being people, loving them each other, just being who they want to be and just being free of instead of what you might say is sort of stuck up or, you know, So it was just it was just coming out, out of out of out of their shell. You know, my. So I can't really put anything in this specific word. Like I want people to get this or to get that. But, you know, for me, photographing is a sign of respect. It's a sign of saying yes to something. It's it's I mean, I have to, you know, be honest. Even though I was just looking at it, I saw that, oh, in 1984, I was wanting to make a book, you know, which seemed very, you know, ambitious of me. But I did like I've made I've made documentaries in film and with the documentary and film, really think about exactly what you're asking me is, what are you trying to convey? It's not necessarily you don't necessarily go out with one idea in mind. You you might develop the idea as as things, you know, as things evolve and your research and doing the documentary. But you try to see what we want to show what a place looks like. We want to, you know, we'll talk to some people, will interview some people, will give a big picture and a small picture and try and think about it intellectually. I was really working much more intuitively. I think it just being drawn to what was going on. But as I mentioned, eventually, once I was being published. Excuse me. Then thinking, Oh, well, I haven't been to Provincetown, you know, I want to go to Provincetown and I'm just going to, you know, go up there and spend a few days and just check out the scene or or go out to Fire Island and just see what's going on out there. So. So it did make me a little more conscious of trying to to, you know, cover other areas. But I didn't think about it in the same way as doing the documentary. So it became very challenging to put together a book and how to show the different facets of what was going on and how to work with, with, with just with images rather than, as you say, you know, what do you what am I trying to say? I'm really trying to say this is this is what was going on. You know, this is what it looked like.

Britt [00:43:58] How did how did you choose the images? How did you know when to stop? I'm sure you had many more images than there were even in the book.

Nicholas [00:44:07] Well, that's absolutely true. I'm very, very lucky that I had to close friends. One Gary Halpern, who was the editor of Photo Media magazine in Seattle and who who you I see was he was there Elliot Bay that night. And he published photo media for, I think about 15 or 20 years. And so he's very good at sequencing and he's a really, really a stickler. And you need people to look at your work and just say, no, this is just like was, you know, artists or writers or Tiger for the time in love with the lot. They're all your babies, you know? And and you know.

Britt [00:44:56] What I went through to get this image.

Nicholas [00:44:59] Exactly. And you see what is. Wow, this is it. This is so great. It just they're like, no, But on the other hand, so they're like, yes, yeah, it's really good. And so and he's also it's very difficult to sequence photographs if you just have one on a page. It's just like the sequencing is much easier. You can follow it with just another one. And, and, and it has to relate in some ways. But when they're facing each other, they have to relate on many levels. They don't necessarily have to look the same and look the same, but they just have to relate and work. And you don't want the eye to have to fight or work hard to to take it in. So in addition to Gary, I had another friend who who looked at an edit. Gary was really in there from the beginning. And I have to say that if he was getting a dollar for every hour, he'd be that he helped me on this, he'd be a rich man. But eventually another friend of mine came to New York. He and that was in Hungary. And and I showed it to him. He'd also been involved while we had done documentaries together, more commercial stuff. And he looked at it. He was like, No, you. And he really had something and strong opinions. And and he was right, because the way the book was structured at that point was it was not there. So the beauty of having two people is that I knew if I floated an idea, if they both said no, okay, just forget it. If one said yes and one said no, then I could pretty much decide what I want to do. And if they both said yes that I knew I was, I really had something going for me. Yeah. And I really couldn't have done it without them. It was just so important to get another objective viewer. I also had other friends that I would occasionally say, Take a look at this. What do you think? I mean, people in the gay community as well, because I did I did want their take on it. And but, you know, people you can't I mean, poor Gary, he probably looked at like 50 or 60 renditions of the book. And most, you know, friends. Okay. 1 or 2. It's sort of like, you know, talking about your breakup or something. They're like, okay, whatever. I saw that image. You know, they don't they, they they don't have the time or capacity because, of course, I do know quite a few photographers. So it took about 3 or 4 renditions. I even you can have books published very inexpensively now. I even had one published through Lightroom. You can send it to Blurb and I just yeah, okay, let's see what it looks like as a, as a, as a book. So, you know, 100 bucks. Here it is. You say, Wow. Okay, that's interesting because it's different when it's online than when it's in actual physical work. And it and then I actually made a mock up of actual real prints that are in it's it's called a post binder. And it's it it ends up being about three inches thick and has like a metal cover and you can really sequence them that way as well. L and just get a feeling for the physical flow of the book. Sometimes people flip the book from right, you know, from back to just like troll thing. I don't know why I do it too, but it's so you you have to think of it front to back, back to front and then ultimately came up with this idea of of the chapters just to break it up a little and using some great pages and then images that are a few images that are a little bigger. So you don't want it to be too, too much like the same. You're just looking at the same space at the same size Image on a page one after. Yeah. So it took it took a long time.

Britt [00:48:48] And it's amazing.

Nicholas [00:48:48] And I feel like I want to flush out the different, the different aspects of, of the, you know, what was going on within framework of that culture.

Britt [00:48:57] You know, I'm going to make you cringe a little bit by giving you some of my opinions for the sake of the audience here. What I take away from the book that I think is so special is that you have some how managed to capture this moment of public liberation where these beautiful I'll call them children, they're adults, but I'm almost mean like as a community and on the maturation curve, like where they had been cloistered and empowered secretly for generations now through all sorts of fighting and changing of laws and protests and marches, now we're able to take up public space in many cases for the first time and be all of themselves with each other. And so there's a sense of camaraderie, there's a sense of audacity, there's a sense of fun and humor and irony and camp. And I'm trying not to cry. It's so special because, you know it's coming. And you when you. When you look at the images, you can't help but wonder how their lives might change over the intervening year or decades. And you can't help but wonder what some of them might have gone through. And yet. You captured their radiance for all time. And so it's like it's still alive. And it's a beautiful gift to the queer community. And it's these absolutely breathtaking images. And I sincerely hope that everybody checks out your work, who's listening? And, you know, you've done a lot more other work than this book like you alluded to. And I really hope that people take the time to get to know you as an artist. And like I said, we'll give them away to a link where they can buy the book really easily and see more of your work. But it's just been such an absolute pleasure to get to know you a little bit to I got the chance to meet you in person briefly at Elliott Bay Bookstore, a wonderful independent bookstore in Seattle. And I'm so grateful that you took the time to not only. Invest in the collection of these images, but the preservation of them, the curation of them, and now the publishing of them, that is no small feat. And you did a really great job outlining the love and care that that goes into that. That is that is a tremendous amount of work. And I'm just I just am so moved by it. And I'm really glad that you came on this show today to. To introduce yourself to our audiences and allow them to get to know your work a little bit better.

Nicholas [00:52:09] Britt Thank you. Thank you so much. You're making me to your up as well and. It's it was a very dark time that it all entered on, and that can't be overlooked. But there was this little window. Yeah. And. You know, I. I just want to thank the queer community for being out there and the way it's. Influence. I mean, for example, now there are drag shows like all over the country, you know, and the parade, it's exciting. So it I you know, one point I thought of the title American Queer, because I just feel that it was like, this is America, you know, and, you know, fuck you. Anita Bryant And yeah, yeah. It felt like it was more specific, too, to certain areas and certain, you know, streets per se. So I didn't go with that. But I just think, you know, the overall influence, is it just undeniable how creative the queer community is and. What a fantastic part of our culture to celebrate.

Britt [00:53:27] Yeah, and there's an urgency to it as well. Like when as a viewer, like I project myself subconsciously in these images and you almost place yourself in the scene in lieu of the photographer. And there's an urgency to it when you consider today's contemporary political realities. We don't know what's on the horizon. It feels as if we're on a knife edge. I'm not alluding to another virus, but that could be the case or it could be a political reality. Everybody, at least in the US right now, I get letters from people all over in the world, you know, What's it like to live in the US? It feels like we're on a knife's edge every day in the US right now. And there's something about your book that that reflects that immediacy, that urgency to it, so that that you're laughing, you're crying, you feel empowered. You feel a wide range of emotions as you're viewing the images. And it's just it's so compelling, absolute triumph. And it's been an absolute pleasure to talk with you today. And thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

Nicholas [00:54:26] Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Britt [00:54:28] Yeah. Okay, listeners, you have done it. You've made it. Yeah, go ahead.

Nicholas [00:54:34] Do I? I just real x. Sorry if you're hearing these crazy things, but he was also lived in the commune for for a year or more. And he he was actually writing something for the book. Unfortunately, he is also past. But this is one of the things that he wrote that. Yeah, that and he has a little quote on the book, too. But the time of LGBTQ activism are not at all over. AU contraire. Today, more than ever, it becomes clear that what we have gained in terms of equality and human rights can also easily be lost again is like maintaining a precious garden, an ongoing project, and it needs a lot of light and plenty of water. Otherwise bad weed the retrograde folks in hater buddies could take over and destroy the achievements we fought for. And that is a global problem, just like in fighting climate change. And he wrote that probably in in 2019. And then unfortunately he got sick and was. Unable to really write more, but I just.

Britt [00:55:50] Thank you for that. It's really beautiful. I really appreciate that. What an amazing epilogue. Well, listeners, you've done it. You've made it through another hour of not going quietly. We could not do the show without you. Thank you so much for all of your support. Thanks to our guest, Nicholas Blair. Like I said, we'll give you his links in the show notes. You can find them all over the place really easily. We're a podcast for outrage optimists and heartbroken healers all over the world. This podcast is for you. It would not exist without your support. Thank you so much. It means the world to me. Until next time. Bye bye.

Jonathan [00:56:25] You've been listening to Not Going Quietly. With co-host Jonathan Beale and Britt East.

Jonathan [00:56:31] Thanks so much for joining us on this wild ride as we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose and joy.

Britt [00:56:39] Check out our show notes for links, additional information, and episodes located on your favorite   podcast platform.