J Stephen Hicks

I didn't know him very well, but the little time I did spend around him or in speaking with him on the phone, I always found Stephen to be an absolutely great guy. I remember the first time I met him, rolling up to his shoot house and he welcomed us in with open arms. He was at the top of his game in terms of talent and yet was as humble as can be.

J. Stephen Hicks had a unique style and will always be remembered as one of the top Photographers to ever work in the Adult Entertainment Industry worldwide.

I only met Stephen a few times but man he was so down to earth. We had a nice breakfast here in Montreal chatting about life and kids as he has a daughter a year older than mine so we had a chuckle about the trials of raising daughters and what was to come, lol.

Sad times when he passed.

I can't believe a year has passed already, I think about Stephen often, when I am searching through my email box for a particular email my eye catches Stephen's emails and I can't believe he's gone. I considered Stephen a friend, I think he considered me one, through email exchanges over 10 years and a few phone calls. I grew up like most guys my age, with a collection of skin magazines under my bed. Penthouse was THE adult magazine of the late 70's and 80's, everything about Playboy had become a dated cliche to me. Penthouse was not just more explicit than Playboy, its' photography and models were different. Bob Guccione had a visual style, that gauzy cinematic look that hipster photographers of today like. His models were more exotic looking, more brunettes, more European looking. And then there was J. Stephen Hicks, one of Penthouse's small stable of centerfold photographers along with Guccione himself, Earl Miller and Suze Randall. I had no idea how old Stephen was, I probably assumed a middle aged man like Guccione and Hefner at the time. I soon realized practically every favorite Penthouse Pet cover and layout I had stuffed in my closet or under my bed was shot by Stephen. I think of one cover in particular, a cute as a button brunette in daisy duke shorts and knee high striped tube socks, the girl next door, of today not 20 years ago. There's a difference to me between a dream girl and a fantasy girl, the dream girl is real, the fantasy girl is imaginary. Stephen's girls were always real, impossibly dreamily real.

Unlike most of his contemporaries Stephen grasped the opportunity of the Internet from the start, he knew it was the future. DDGirls.com was his baby and the magazine sales were poured into his Internet business to create his dream. DDGirls.com was ahead of its time, we forget how incredibly awful adult paysites were in those early years. Long before there was Twistys, X-Art, FTVGirls, long before Playboy and Penthouse understood what the Internet was, there was DDGirls.com. Stephen reaped the rewards, I know how many members it had at its peak. His success afforded him to put together a dream operation, Stephen talked about his crew like they were family. He did put together an affiliate program but at the time you really didn't need an affiliate program to have great success. In later years when business online became harder Stephen told me he had missed the boat when it came to that side of the business, it was still pretty much a mystery to him. He asked me years ago if I'd come work for him, I declined the opportunity telling him I wouldn't be the answer anyway. I sent him two industry friends I thought could help, one told him he had to drastically cut his overhead, Stephen wasn't about to do that, his employees were family and he'd soldier on. The other was too much of a hustler, business wise I think he'd have made Stephen money but hustling anybody wasn't in Stephen's makeup.

In 2004 I saw a new model posting on GFY, it was the heyday of GFY, models actually posted here. Her name was Nikki Nevada, I clicked her thread, my jaw dropped when I saw the photos, two things immediately popped into my head, this was THE girl next door, and Stephen Hicks. I grabbed the photos and sent them off to Stephen. A few minutes later a reply from him hit my inbox - please tell me how to find this girl, I want to shoot her for a week. I icq'ed Nikki, introduced myself and told her that a famous photographer for Penthouse magazine wanted to bring her to LA for a week, she'd make 3500 dollars. She was suspicious and asked a lot of questions, I assured her the offer was real and she'd be in good hands. She said she'd have to ask her webmaster, she was under a contract. The news wasn't good the next time I talked to her, her webmaster had talked to other webmasters with solo girl sites who had advised him it was a bad idea or some scam and she couldn't take accept the offer. I relayed the info on to Stephen who was disappointed with the news. She hit me up once more and asked if the offer would still be available in 5 months, when her contract was up. A month or so passed before I heard from her again, she was quitting her site. I asked why, she said she wasn't making a lot and wanted to go back to waitressing and school. I asked how much she was making, she told me, it sounded like pretty decent money to me for one photoshoot a month and 4 camshows. But when the other girl in the same program who's actually younger than she was is making 10 or 12K a month I could see why she was down on things. Once the drama with the webmaster was over it was off to LA for her. Stephen was blown away by her, each night of the week he'd email me about the shooting day, he said only one other model came to mind that had the same impact on him. On the Friday I talked to him and he asked me for my address to send the 750 referral fee. I laughed, I told him I didn't want a referral fee, it's not why I sent him the photos months earlier, this girl was meant to be shot by J Stephen Hicks. I guarantee you that one day Ashley Brookes will show her children those photos and be proud of them. That's how great a photographer he was. No girl will ever look as beautiful as she looked through the lens of Stephen Hicks.

I sent other first time models to him after Ashley and he was always effusively grateful, we'd exchange back and forth emails every few months. He trusted me so he shared business and personal things with me that I don't think he did with many. It's the special unique nature of Internet friendships, people open up more and trust more. The last years of Stephen's life were stressful business wise, very. In one of the last emails I received from him he said despite the fact that times were tough, and here he was at 57 working harder than he had ever worked before, that he had his health and his family and he had no right to complain. When Babes.com launched here on GFY I posted in their thread, I instantly knew from one look at the content that it was produced by Hicks and commented I was surprised being that is was hardcore boy/girl sex. I don't think Stephen read GFY, not sure if he even knew it existed, but the next day he sent me an email, he wanted me to know that he wasn't anywhere around when the boy/girl hardcore was shot, they used his studio and he had lent his technical advice and that was all. He was old fashioned that way, he didn't like the hardcore side of the industry. I had once before suggested that he should consider shooting hardcore for Digital Desire seeing how X-Art blew up when they went hardcore to which he replied 'If it comes to that, no thanks, I'll sell cars'.

I hope his wife and kids are doing well and that Digital Desire survives and prospers, life was about a lot more than work for Stephen but that website is one great photographer's life's work.

Wow its been a year already!? :-(