Scot Sothern

I've spent a good portion of the last four decades photographing strangers in Hollywood.

In 1979 I moved back to the Ozarks, after a 12-year absence, and crashed at an abandoned old hotel owned by my dad. Luckily he had a photography studio downstairs.

Tattoos in the 80s were still somewhat unique to alternative lifestyles.

Working the graveyard shift at a photo studio in Times Square leads to some bizarre happenings.

I learned of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination from a cab driver in Kansas City.

It's 1965 and photographer Scot Sothern is driving to St. Louis with his high school to see a basketball game. He downs a pint of rum and ends up naked in a hotel lobby at four in the morning.

Photographer Scot Sothern looks back at some of the weirdest New Year's nights he's had.

It's 1970, and I work a couple of days a week at a Newport Beach carwash for $1.50 an hour, which keeps me in Banquet TV dinners, Hostess cherry pies, and Kool Kings.

It's 1966, and I develop photos of tourists in a leaky darkroom and sell them for a buck each and hope they don't fade before the people drive away.

It's 1962, and mother wants me to learn humility. So she takes me away from afternoon cartoons to deliver care packages from the church to families experiencing hardship.

I remember a bottle of Bacardi rum, going to a party, stripping naked, following my stiff wiener, and chasing girls around.

I figure everyone with a camera takes pictures of homeless people, but homeless people don’t get to shoot the alternate view, so I’m doing it for them.