Scot Sothern
Cool as Dry Ice in Missouri
It’s around midnight sometime in 1968 when I hit Sedalia, Missouri. I’m on my bike, a 1967 BSA Hornet, and I’ve just come 115 exhilarating, two-lane-blacktop miles at top speed. The attendant at the all-night gas station gives me directions to Black...
Places No One Would Want to Settle
It’s 1973 and I’m somewhere in north Florida or maybe south Georgia, behind the wheel and stuck in the moment. I pass tumbledown bars and markets with screen doors that slam in the wind. People old and young planted upright in the weeds watch me roll...
Inside a Satanic Hoedown in the Valley of the Damned
The year is 1985, and I've got a gig taking pictures at a satanic hoedown. A warlock in a black cape ushers us into a two-bedroom apartment where about a dozen devil disciples are hanging about, plotting the end of days.
Multiple Wives and Plastic Lovers
It's 1983 and I’ve got a year-long gig in Saudi Arabia. Subcontracted by Aramco Oil, I've been hired to make slide/tape training programs, which means I fly around in helicopters taking pictures on oil rigs and at gas-oil separation plants. On my days...
Coffin Nails and Faith Healing
On a short visit to the old homestead in Springfield, Missouri, I borrow my mother’s car and drive to Bass Pro Shops, a local success story about a country boy tying fishing flies to sell in his father’s liquor store and turning it into a national...
Moonstruck, 1989
“I know a place. You can fuck me if you want, I like it better than blow jobs and I’m good at it. You have to wear a condom, I’m not putting it in my mouth or my pussy without a condom.”
On Decks and Doors
It’s 1982 and I’ve got a gig on a Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Ranger. I climb aboard at Coronado Island across the San Diego Bay and get off seven days later in Honolulu, Hawaii. Three or four layers below deck I set up a portable portrait...
Changing the Guard
I’m a high school freshman face down on the desk in English class when the loudspeaker interrupts my sleep. The president is dead. Killed in Dallas. School’s out for the rest of the day, which is good news.
A Picture In the Backseat
Earlier, I got paid for a two-week gig as an optical camera operator and now my wallet is full of 20s. I take Pine Avenue up to Pacific Coast Highway and turn left toward the freeway, driving slowly, looking for subject matter.
Girlie Show
She takes my head into her hands and plants her lips on mine, puts her tongue into my mouth, and squirms into my soul.
Danger Lurks Everywhere
The street lamp is burned out, or maybe it’s just not there. A friendly face, gaunt with brown starlit eyes breaks the surface of shadows and smiles at me. I toggle down my window and pull to a stop. A tall Aztec shemale on long pointy heels. “Mister...
You Know What
A girl in black stretchy pants and a translucent undershirt holds her thumb in the air. She’s a curly headed blonde, sinewy and angular. I pull to the curb and buzz down the window. She bends at the waist, hands on her knees, and checks me out...