DANNY NICOLETTA,
is an American photographer and activist, born on this date: In 1975,
when he was nineteen, he was hired by Harvey Milk and Scott Smith to
work at Castro Camera, their camera store on Castro Street. The three
became friends and Nicoletta worked with Milk on his political campaigns
for office.
During this
period of time, Nicoletta took many now well-known photographs of Milk.
Once Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Milk
became California's first openly Gay elected official and served for
almost eleven months before he and Mayor George Moscone were
assassinated by Dan White in City Hall on November 27, 1978.
After the death
of Harvey Milk, Nicoletta worked to keep his memory alive. He was the
installation coordinator of the Harvey Milk photographic tribute plaques
installed at Harvey Milk Plaza and at the Castro Street Station, which
featured his photographs as well as those of Marc Cohen, Don Eckert,
Jerry Pritikin, Efren Ramirez, Rink, and Leland Toy. He was co-chair of
the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee, and his photograph served
as the basis for the bust of Milk that now resides in the rotunda of San
Francisco's City Hall. His portrait of Milk was also used on the United
States Postal Service's tribute stamp.
Daniel
Nicoletta's photographs of Milk are featured prominently in the 1985
Academy Award-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by
Rob Epstein. In the feature film Milk, a biographical film based on the
life of Harvey Milk directed by Gus Van Sant, Daniel Nicoletta is played
by Lucas Grabeel. Nicoletta himself plays Carl Carlson and served as
the stills photographer on the film.
Daniel Nicoletta
was one of the founders of Frameline Film Festival. In 1977, while still
working at Harvey Milk's photography shop, Nicoletta, along with David
Waggoner, Marc Huestis, and others, began film screenings of their Super
8 films, called the Gay Film Festival of Super 8 Films, which evolved into the yearly festival.
As a
photographer, Nicoletta has contributed to a number of films, as well as
books and periodicals. His work is archived at the James C. Hormel Gay
and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library, at the Wallach
Collection of Fine Prints and the Berg Collection at the New York Public
Library and at Schwules Museum in Berlin, Germany.
His work has
documented queer culture throughout the late 1970s into the 2000s and
besides his historic photographs of Harvey Milk also include subjects
such as the White Night Riots, the Castro Street Fair and the San
Francisco Pride Parade, The Cockettes and the Angels of
Light. Nicoletta’s first book, “LGBT San Francisco: The Daniel Nicoletta
Photographs,” was released by Reel Art Press this summer (2017).
