joanathegrey ASKED:

Where did you get inspiration?

Music, mostly — the worlds I found in Boys and Girls, Daydream Nation, or Dog Man Star drove me to photography in the first place. I’m still hoping to reach their heights someday — never mind the glory of Soundtracks for the Blind.

As for more direct, visual inspiration, if you dig through this Tumblr you’ll find plenty of people I found inspiring over the years. Here are some painters I love & I think you’ll love them too: Balthus, Smith, Modigliani, Nerdrum, Saville. And let’s not forget photographers, of course! Here’s today’s top 5: Newton, Bourdin, Moon, Ballen, Penn.

Love, Nikola

Ask me anything.

Suede, The Asphalt World
(Dog Man Star, 1994)

“Sometimes they fly from the covers to the winter of the river — for these silent stars of the cinema it’s in the bloodstream, it’s in the liver. But where does she go? And what does she do? And how does she feel when she’s in your bed?”

The best record of the ’90s. Rock’n’roll was never this ambitious again.

Buy Dog Man Star (Deluxe edition). Suede, previously. Further mandatory reading.

Joanne Leonard, Sleeping Man (1971) Also known as the cover of Suede’s Dog Man Star.
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Joanne Leonard, Sleeping Man (1971)

Also known as the cover of Suede’s Dog Man Star.

Suede, Heroine
(Dog Man Star, 1994)

“She walks in beauty like the night, discarding her clothes in the plastic flowers, pornographic and tragic in black and white — my Marilyn, come to my slum for an hour.”

Dog Man Star taught me everything I know about photography.