Biography
I left Toronto in 1987, after graduating from the University of Toronto,
with a camera, a Polaroid hustle, and a clear idea of what I was after:
proximity to spectacle.
In Toronto I had already photographed and sold Polaroid’s to thousands of people—
at Sparkles in the CN Tower, The Copa in Yorkville, The Diamond, and aboard the Mariposa Belle.
It was fast, transactional, and direct. You saw people at their most constructed,
and you learned quickly where the line was between who they were
and who they were trying to be.
New York offered a larger stage for the same instincts. I set up as house photographer at Club 10-18 (The Roxy),
with a brief stop at the Cat Club in the Village. The crowds were dressed to declare themselves—gold chains,
designer armour, champagne as currency.
Ten hours a week selling Polaroids covered everything else I needed to do.
At the same time, I moved into 35mm, working in both black-and-white and colour.
The shift slowed things down just enough to notice more—the edges of performance,
the slips, and the details that didn’t announce themselves. My introduction to
Details magazine came through Stephen Saban, whose eye for who mattered—and
when they mattered—sharpened my own.
The work expanded as the scene expanded. Through Michael Alig and Project X Magazine,
I moved from documenting parties to producing them. The photographs followed the same subjects:
downtown denizens, artists and celebrities, self-invented figures, and those hovering just before recognition.
The tension between pose and personality held everything together.
Exhibitions and publications later framed that period as part of a larger cultural moment—appearing alongside figures
like Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Weegee, and Andy Warhol in The Last Party: Nightworld in Photographs,
and in subsequent shows in New York and Toronto. But the photographs themselves were never about nostalgia.
They were about a system of behaviour—how people construct themselves when they know they are being seen.
Over time, the subject matter widened, but the approach didn’t change. Travel replaced nightlife.
The stage became less defined, more dispersed. I began photographing across dozens of countries in my `free time`
while working as a full-time ship`s photographer on Princess Cruises—without a fixed theme or assignment—only
a consistent attention to the moment where intention and accident meet.
Across cultures, the same patterns repeat. Gesture, display, decoration, belief,
humour—different forms, same impulse. The work became less about specific scenes
and more about recognition.
John Simone’s Photographic Voyages extends that trajectory.
Drawing from a large archive built across more than 50 countries, the exhibition brings
together 300 photographs installed as a continuous visual field. Dense groupings and intervals
of larger images create a rhythm rather than a narrative—movement through looking, not through sequence.
The images move between objects, people, and environments, but the underlying interest
remains constant: the world assembling itself in plain sight.
I’m not interested in capturing it.
I’m interested in catching it in the act.
Click to view RuPaul: 
Click to view Sister Dimension: 
Click to view Leigh Bowery: 
Click to view Lady Bunny: 
Click to view Michael Musto: 
Click to view A Files: 
Click to view B Files: 
Click to view C Files: 
Click to view D Files: 
Click to view E-F-G Files: 
Click to view H-I Files: 
Click to view J Files: 
Click to view K Files: 
Click to view L Files: 
Click to view M Files: 
Click to view N Files: 
Click to view R Files: 
Click to view S Files: 
Click to view T-Z Files: 
Click to view James St. James: 
Click to view Susanne Bartsch: 
Click to view It Twins: 
Click to view Nanzi Zipkin: 
Click to view International Chrysis: 
Click to view Julie Jewels: 
Click to view Michael Alig: 
Click to view Larry Tee: 
Click to view Goldy Loxx: 
Click to view Miss Perfidia: 
Click to view Joey Arias: 
Click to view: 
Click to view Denise Stoughton: 
Click to view Downtown People: 
jetsetjohnny.ca
Exotic World Travel
John Simone Photography
Simone spent 5 years traveling
to over 80 countries as Senior Photographer
and Photography Teacher on Princess Cruises
These are the first Forty-four cities posted - with more to follow
Click to View any city to visit on John Simone Photography's jetsetjohnny.ca:
