Carol Alt

Carol Alt, Key West, FL 2008. Working for Playboy Magazine allowed for a kind of freedom–you could drink and smoke cigarettes in the pictures–and in general be a little more creative. They hired me to shoot my nude cover spread of Carol Alt, who was turning 50 years old—I was excited for the opportunity. Playboy had a lot of money to spend–so I chose this tiny, privately-owned island in Key West. It was my kind of shoot–I could be in a bathing suit in the sun, with a beautiful subject, a big budget, and good exposure...pun intended.

I hired a boat with these Key West stoners to get us there and back each day. Every morning, we’d get in a boat with all our equipment, hair and makeup, assistants, the whole thing. It was a half-an-hour boat ride, and I wanted to catch the sunrise, so we’d be up in the middle of the night to beat the sun. We’d shoot all day long, and as soon as the sun set, the boat would be waiting for us–with beers on ice, some weed, and a barbeque, set up on a barge–it was perfect.

Every day I’m finding locations–shooting in the water, in the jungle, up in a palm tree. It’s so hot and humid, and we’re putting down leaves so Carol has something clean to stand on–but I’m just standing in puddles and mud to get the shots. In between looks I’d dive in the water and swim–it was fun, and the photos were incredible.

I got home, I’m laying in bed, and all of a sudden I felt something in my leg–this weird bump, the shape of a vein. I wake up the next morning, and the vein is in a different place. It was moving.

I had befriended this doctor in New York, a wacky guy, but also a dermatologist. So I called him, and I was like, I think I got something going on. I go to his office and he starts laughing at me. I was like, What are you laughing at? And he says, “You got the shit worm.” And I was like, what the fuck is a shit worm? Well it’s a parasite, and I must have got it in the tepid water on the island. He said I was its host but that lucky for me, it would die and the human body would eventually dissolve it. Unlucky for me, I had to sit with a shit worm in my leg and do nothing until then. Ah…the glamorous life.