Can I stand in your light just for a while?

Nick Valensi: Sonic mastermind, guitar deity, 1/5 of the Strokes, scrabble enthusiast, bibliophile, American Literature dropout from Hunter College who wrote for the student paper, epicure, wine mom, born and bred New Yorker who left the city for love, stoner dad whose kids know Matilda primarily as a Roald Dahl book and not just a movie, husband whose idea of date night is a good old LA comedy show and burgers after, overall awe-inspiring human being. Ask anyone in the know, and they could probably tell you a thing or two about him.

But one thing that is sure to come up very seldom, if it even comes up at all, is his penchant for photography.

A couple years ago I was reading something Strokes-related and scrolled down to the comments section. Someone had written: "Whatever happened to Nick's photography?" I narrowed my eyes in confusion. What photography?

It's not very obvious, unlike Fab's art, but it's all laid out in plain sight. How camera-shy he was in the always heart-wrenching "In Transit" ("What, you got a fucking crush on me?"), but specifically how he'd hog the camcorder the other way and film his band and tour mates, for one. And for another, the immense archive of personal photos they used to post on their website (I always did love how DIY and hands-on and down-to-earth their approach used to be for things like their fan club and posting updates and everything else), quite a bit of which were taken by him.

I came across a compressed folder that has virtually every photo from the old Strokes website, circa 2001 to maybe 2005, and it even had a subfolder of grainy, lo-fi videos. Aside from the pre-selfie age 35mm self-portraits, some images stood out as undeniably his work. Ultimately, going through them was what got me curious about Nick's forgotten hobby. So I went digging.

If you Google "nick valensi photography," you're more likely to get results about his wife Amanda de Cadenet, who's been very accomplished behind the camera, being the youngest woman who's ever shot a Vogue cover and having come out with a photo book called Rare Birds. (She was also supposed to release a book called Just a Boy, which would've been composed entirely of photos of Nick, but it was shelved. Literally.) Doing research for this post, I had to come up with all kinds of word combinations just to find any evidence that he was into it. Eventually, I found the following.

From a feature on Julian Casablancas and Phrazes for the Young in Nylon:

From a news piece on NME about Nick working on Sia's We Are Born: 

A Strokes website update:

The site was given a whole new look (LP6 realness!!!) and might have changed servers a couple of days after I found the above post, so the link I had didn't work anymore, and while searching for it again manually, I saw another update addressing it:

Their old fan club "Forget What You Heard" newsletters also had collages that list him as the photographer.

I tried looking for more regarding those prints, particularly which photos they're of, to no avail. And neither Nylon nor NME (quadruple alliteration!) offered any real information regarding Nick's supposed foray into photography during the Strokes hiatus. Maybe it really is just something he's passionate about, and he doesn't feel the need to have that all out in the open. But honestly, he should at least make an Instagram because we're missing out!

I'll spend the rest of this post interspersing facts and comments with the photos I've rounded up; the real evidence in all this, of course. There's quite a bit of them, but they're worth the extra scrolls for sure.

First off: His weapon of choice. He wasn't kidding—the Contax T3 is pretty fucking dope (it's still super popular among people who take this kind of thing seriously, or even not-so-seriously), and it is pricey. More than "a bit," in fact. I've recently gotten back into film photography and was looking for cheap 35mm cameras on OLX, and the first result was this ad for a used T3. And it's P45,000. It stung like hell, like the universe was trying to spite me. Oh, the dream. And Nick had the gall to lose two of them?!      

A feature in the sadly now-defunct Elle Girl, circa 2006. (Click to enlarge.) A magazine that largely contributed to my self-discovery and musical awakening. They were pretty big on the Strokes, going so far as to feature Juliet Joslin in 2003 and putting Fabrizio Moretti (#50), Nick (#22) and Julian (#9) on their "50 Hottest Guys in Rock!" list. Fab made it onto the list another year, at number 29.

Okay. On to the real photos. I've divided them into three groups, and the first one, much like the introductory image, is composed of self-portraits or pictures where Nick is visibly holding the camera. He was quite fond of mirror shots, obvi.  

I know this is technically not a self-portrait, but that arm is unmistakable.

I love the composition of this one. 

This next group includes photos that have explicitly been credited to Nick on the Strokes website:

This one of the shoes wasn't credited to him, but judging from those infamous worn-out sneakers and the caption and the angle, this is definitely a Valensi. 

And finally, some photos that aren't Nick's for certain, but I'm putting here based on educated guesses: 

The picture above could probably count as one of the Nick-is-visible stuff because I'm pretty sure that's his reflection. Anyway, I figured the above five were taken by him, considering he experimented with black and white film a lot, plus the grain and focus felt like they were from a Contax T3. 

Also, Fab was pretty much Nick's muse. 

The next five colored images, I've included based on observations re: consistency and the overall feel of them. 

I love the composition of this one, too.

These last two are definitely from the same night as the picture with Jack White.

I find it adorable and amusing how slice-of-life and candid the above shot (particularly because Julian used to be so grumpy/moody then) and this one below (particularly because of how accurately it depicts tour life!) are.

The purpose of this post was to dig deeper into a somewhat long-lost facet—in the public eye, at least—of Nick Valensi that's mostly just been mentioned offhand and thrust to the side. In doing so, I found that, in the midst of the mesmerizing or the mundane, he had (and hopefully retains) quite an eye for the real moments worth saving, and was/is able to do so in a way that really commands attention and thought. Even if they were just "fucking around." But the fine line between love and hate photography for posterity/the heck of it and as art is visible, and these are all clearly on the more creative side. There's this quiet surge of life in them that makes them interesting, and not just because they're all of a rock band.   

(And they're all so beautiful, which made it pretty difficult to narrow the selections down!) 

You can see from his work how well he knows his subjects (and his surroundings, and his city) and what makes them who they are. They come alive even without motion. 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that, whatever did happen, they continue to, even if we haven't gotten the chance to witness it in quite some time.