Kirk Driscoll and Niki Dantine: Photographers above/below
By Robert Crane and Leslie Bertram

The dictionary definition of an artist includes "a person skilled in one of the fine arts" AND "one who is adept at deception." Underwater photographer Niki Dantine doesn't necessarily want art patrons visiting Orlando Gallery in Tarzana to know she has been an actress (Princess Daisy, Westwind), dancer, and model and is a daughter of the late Loew's theatre chain founder and MGM president, Nicholas Schenck. Contemporary-abstract photographer Kirk Driscoll would prefer that supporters of the art of producing images on a sensitized surface not be bothered with the fact that he's a veteran bartender (27 years at Stanley's in Sherman Oaks), co-author of the upcoming tell-all bar book, Burn The Ice, and an early television reality star on Fox's Paradise Hotel.
Bob Gino and Don Grant, owners of the 50-year-old Orlando Gallery which so happens to have produced the first decent photography show in a public gallery 35 years ago when photographers still showed at furniture stores, shake their heads in amazement. "We've never experienced so many professions and personalities encased in two artists," says the Mr. Clean-look-alike Gino. Grant adds, "They're polar opposites which make for a great show."
Dantine came up with the show title: above/below. Get it? Driscoll shoots above water level - abstract forms including rusted out urban building facades and dilapidated billboards showing parts of their last four advertisements in an interesting juxtaposition. Dantine shoots below water level - Long Nose Hawkfish off the coast of New Guinea and Red Eye Jacks in The Great Barrier Reef to Crinoids in the Galapagos Islands and Napoleon Wrasse in the Red Sea.
The fifty-seven-year-old Driscoll does admit he enjoys shooting real live models occasionally. "I do have to eat so I take on commercial work or actress/model publicity shots. One of my customers at Stanley's, a lawyer who represents Tera Patrick and Jenna Jameson among others, got me contracts and model release forms at no cost. There's a benefit to bartending."
The attractive, red-headed Dantine experienced the uncertain actress/model rollercoaster ride herself for a time, but, after the death of her second husband, famed Century City attorney Greg Bautzer, she took up scuba diving, bought top notch equipment including Nikonos V and Canon F1 cameras with Ikelite strobes and traveled worldwide, often the only woman onboard sailing vessels. Dantine says, "I discovered the underwater world, and photography, fairly late in life on a trip to Sharm El Sheik, Egypt. Unhampered by knowledge, I dropped over the side of the ship and instantly fell in love. Having traveled to places like Borneo and the Solomon Islands, I find travel to be a constant learning experience. I always try to make eye contact with my subjects (Hammerhead Sharks! Giant Manta Rays!) so we develop a relationship. It's a love affair."
Driscoll has made plenty of eye contact with his subjects while tending bar at Stanley's. He says,
"I've talked to (Quentin) Tarantino about our favorite films, sung with Dolly Parton in the bathroom, told Rod Stewart his wife called and wants him home, received an autographed 'adult' DVD from Shane, had a beer with (Wayne) Gretzky and signed a Stanley's placemat for Mel Gibson." Driscoll, who had a much shorter acting career than Dantine, played a hunter chasing down the protagonist in the straight-to-video, Dominion, written by a Stanley's co-worker, and a serial killer in a short film. He enjoys a certain autonomy found in both photography and bartending. "We're not just the quarterbacks, we're (Tom) Brady, man. Just as Annie Leibovitz controls her shoot, bartenders are given the run of the bar. We're rewarded and not only in tips." Driscoll's co-bartender of twenty years, Steve DeWinter, says there's a downside. "You learn a thousand drinks and then you end up making 12 of them for the rest of your life."
Dantine is working with the patient, bare-footed Grant in the front room of Orlando Gallery on how her half of the above/below show will be hung. She clearly loves what she is doing. All the countless hours spent waiting on film sets, at dance rehearsal halls, and as a model on location for other photographer's shoots, have prepared Dantine for her ultimate role as conduit between the exotic, undersea life of a hundred feet down and the viewer up top who will never experience the intimacy Dantine has experienced with otherworldly aquatic animals. "It requires great patience to find some of the tiny creatures that inhabit the oceans and, more importantly, to get into their comfort zone and be allowed to photograph them, on film, by the way, not digitally. I am not a marine biologist or scientist. I learn by doing, "says Dantine.
The lean, tall Driscoll seconds that. "Everyday I learn something new about photography. I'll be doing this until I figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I really want to be a director."
The gallery erupts in laughter. Grant's Irish Setter, Molly, barks with approval.
Kirk Driscoll & Niki Dantine above/below. March 6 - 31, Tues. - Sat. 9:30-3:30 p.m. Orlando Gallery, 18376 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana. (818) 705-5368

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