Daniel Nicoletta Book Signing Party

Daniel Nicoletta, who started his photography career as a teenage assistant in the 1970s at Harvey Milk's camera shop in the Castro, has just had his first collection of photos, LGBT San Francisco, published by Real Art Press in London.

An entertaining book signing party was held last Thursday in The Green Room in the Veterans Building on Van Ness, and it attracted a wide range of survivors from the 1970s who have not yet moved to Palm Springs, along with a sprinkling of young pups.

One of the more amusing moments was watching the gentleman above leafing through the book, and exclaiming, "That's me!" eight different times.

The 304-page, oversized coffee table book has been beautifully crafted, so we congratulated the gent above who was involved in scanning the photos for reproduction.

Local artistic fixtures were everywhere, including Russell Blackwood of the late, lamented Thrillpeddlers at the Hypnodrome talking to journalist and costumer John F. Karr.

The ubiquitous drag queen Donna Sachet held court on the balcony...

...while being watched by Tony and Leandro.

Michael Lee from Minneapolis (above left, with Rex the Nob Hill Gentleman) was in an ecstatic mood because he is currently writing a biography of the late gay writer, Randy Shilts, and was surrounded by his subject's milieu.

Nicoletta moved to rural Oregon about five years ago, but his book is an instant time machine to San Francisco's Radical Sex Culture from the 1970s to the present. Pictured above is fellow photographer Rink who has been covering much the same ground for decades. Though Rink's work is more Weegee than Avedon, his treasure trove of historical photos would also make for a fascinating book.