In Honor of Green Beer: Nightlife Photography

It's St. Patrick's Day, for better or worse, and some of us around here have received an invite to Patrick McMullan's annual holiday bash. McMullan, of course, is one of New York's original nightlife photographers, and he's given way to many more. One of my favorites is Nikola Tamindzic, who has been pounding the vodka-splashed pavement for the past several years. There are prizes for this sort of thing, and Nikola has won them: Nightlife Photographer of the Year from the Village Voice in 2006, and the same honor in 2007 from Paper Magazine, L Magazine, and Junk Magazine.

Nikola fell into his profession rather accidentally, when he went to Gawker founder Nick Denton's costume party in 2004 as a photographer. He wasn't one at the time, but acted out his part faithfully, and the images found their way back to Denton. A lunch meeting later, and Nikola was the official photographer for Gawker. For real. You can find a whole bunch of these archived party pics at Nikola's old site, Ambrel.net. But for the brand-'spankin new Nikola creations, go to Home of the Vain. Aside from a wide reach and a sync cord, you have to be pretty damn charming to get some of these shots. And let me assure you, Mr. Tamindzic is.

Here's one of my favorites:

It's of model-of-the-moment Agyness Deyn at a Fashion Week party. Everyone is in disarrayed party mode, looking drunk and sweaty, but Agyness finds the camera and looks fucking cool. Take THAT, Tyra! I haven't had such a model-crush since Nadja.

And here's a pairing that I find interesting, but Nikola thinks is "not that revelatory". I asked him to send me the picture before the picture of one of his recent great shots. Thanks for playing along, my friend. I think it's impressive that it only takes him two tries. This is Annie Lennox and Gina Gershon lounging at a party.