A Shot in the Dark

A Memoir

By: Sante D’Orazio

Narrated by: Sante D’Orazio

A riotous, Fellini-esque memoir from the famous artist and fashion photographer whose work helped define the look of a generation. A Shot in the Dark includes nearly one hundred photos, spanning decades of D’Orazio’s incomparable career.

Whether or not you know his name, you know his work.

As one of the top fashion photographers in the industry, Sante D’Orazio played a seminal role in shaping how we define what it is to be beautiful, cool, glamorous, and hot. The résumé of A-listers he has shot includes top supermodels—Helena Christensen, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell, among others—as well as a myriad of actors, artists, and athletes, including Pamela Anderson, Prince, Keith Richards, Axl Rose, Sophia Loren, Mickey Rourke, and Mike Tyson. In this intimate, riotous, rough-and-tumble memoir, D’Orazio writes of his many adventures and how he fought his way to the top while navigating a life of sex, drugs, hustlers, and panic attacks.

But beneath the surface of glamour and glitz, we find surprising depth. D’Orazio informs his narrative with artful meditations on the tensions that have defined his career and life: between the sacred and the profane; the commercial demands of fashion photography versus his personal art and his true love of painting; the nature of light and the disabling darkness of mood swings; ’80s glamour versus “heroin chic”; the mystic presence of Saint Padre Pio and the bacchanalia of Studio 54—from cocaine to Caravaggio.

Along the way, the author weaves together a vivid story of the Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn where he grew up and, especially, of his overly dramatic mother. The author chronicles his deeply personal, often hilarious, and always entertaining journey as he comes to terms with how the pull of his mother affected his many relationships with women—and informs the bond he has formed with his own son.

A Shot in the Dark is a shocking, sexy, and surprisingly revealing memoir that pulls you into the many frames of life.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2025 Sante D’Orazio (P)2025 Blackstone Publishing

The Real Deal

I enjoyed and hung on every word. This is a very honest peak behind the curtain of the Modeling World and a Frustrated Artist. Beautifully written and narrated.

Strangely endearing

I almost quit listening right off the bat when I could tell what an awful narrator D'Orazio was and wasn't sure I was interested in another sex and drugs and rock and roll story. But I kept listening. Not sure why I ended up enjoying this except that D'Orazio was strangely endearing.