Nocturnal Submissions
Goodbye, So-Long, Motherfucker
1987. It’s summertime on Victory Boulevard, 101 degrees, dry and windy. I’m in the Camaro with the air conditioner on, playing in traffic. I’ve got $200 and I’m on my way to buy some cocaine. At a light I see a working San Fernando Valley girl. She’s...
All Alone at Four in the Morning
I’ve just photographed a tall thin naked transvestite whore in a MacArthur Park motel room, and I’m in a good mood. The air is misty and cold. I’m walking the wrong way back to the car, trying to maneuver with my cane and camera down a blacktop hill...
Cats Fucking
1988. I’m on Central Avenue about a mile south of wise decisions. A warm wind is blowing through the desert that is Los Angeles. It's 4:00 AM when I spy a skinny wreck in spike heels, short-shorts, and a halter top. She gives a wink and a wave, and I...
It’s Only Pornography
I pluck Havana from a gaggle of streetwalkers on Stanford Street somewhere around Pico. She tells me she’s from Mexico, here in the land of opportunity to reap rewards on streets of gold. I tell her I only want to take pictures, but she has a Pavlovian...
Sticking a Used Condom to the Wall
1989. Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana. I’ve only been here twice, both times to buy drugs. I’ve got a premonition I’m going to find love and affection as I drive toward a group of motels near Anaheim. I know exactly what I’m looking for, and when I find...
Fuck the Police
Four AM, Sunday morning—Saturday night for those of us still awake. At Western and Hollywood Boulevard, where a giant hot dog used to sit on top of a funky food joint and now it doesn’t. I miss all the lowbrow landmarks of LA, the city I love. South on...
Close to the Goodyear Blimp
1986, I’m somewhere off the 110 freeway close to the Goodyear Blimp in Gardena. I’m dodging potholes, spinning yarns in my head, thinking about all the things I’m gonna be someday. I drive slowly looking for models in the shadows, but what I see is a...
Big Motherfuckin' Boobies
Scot Sothern is a Los Angeles-based photographer and a big prostitute fan. Over the past two decades Scot has slept with and/or photographed a plethora of LA’s sex workers. His photos invoke such a visceral reaction in the viewer, and raise so many...