Category Archives: Photography

photography

A Leap of Faith

OK here we go: a leap of faith. I am finding t I am wanting to retreat into my sorted world of insecurities, which I must admit can consume me. But now is the time to really begin my focus on beauty and art and that’s what this project is really about. I am deeply romantic at my core; it’s one of the things that really excites me about who I am. I don’t really care to change the world, and for the most part am very withdrawn from it. I love soft light and constantly strive to work with it in my imagery. In fact my entire studio is completely wired on a series of dimmers so that I can have control of creating the perfect environment for whatever mood I am in. Music is an integral part of that romantic allure. I love music; all kinds of music and often becomes part of the design. For me this is what the photograph becomes about, setting up the environment for a tone, a feeling, an emotions and creating that entire state of existence. It becomes intoxicating, entrancing, and often time very hypnotic. It allows me to bond with the subject so we can go on a highly personal journeys together, to get to the core of what I am feeling, and explore our identities.

When I first got into photography I was drawn to the images of Robert Mapplethorpe. I was not sure why. Was it the mystic behind the person? Was it his bold approach to subject matter he tackled? There was always something in the images that riveted me to his subjects. I spent many years searching for my connection to his work. Much of his stuff was so far removed from my world and existence. Yet it was haunting, like a siren song. There was such poetic beauty in the imagery. Year later after I had begun to develop my own style I read an interview with him that suddenly made the connection for me. He basically said that you must have a strong connection to the subject. He loved to talk to, in fact insisted on personally connecting to his subjects first. This builds trust and draws them in. In this business I meet so many strangers. When I begin to work with someone new I always plan some time where I can talk to them, really connect to who they are. I am curious about people by nature and have an even stronger curiosity about what it is within myself that is drawn to this particular person. The photographic sessions then becomes an exploration of myself, my own personal journey, and to eventually unveil what is remarkable about this subject. And yes, every single person has some remarkable quality within them, it’s just a mater of how guarded they are to reveal it and let it surface. Somehow people trust you as a photographer and are more susceptible to allowing you into their inner selves. Some of these bonds last, some of them are fleeting, but it always lingers with what’s left behind, the image.

Wraith of anti-homoerotic gods!?!?!

Wrath of the techno gods!!!!   For some reason I have been in technology limbo for the past couple of days.  Sunday as I was beginning this blog and uploading the first entry onto the internet my laptop, that I do all my writing, research, and finances on suddenly crashed.  I just barely got the text up when bam! The laptop, a Mac Book Pro that I have had for 8 years, which has been my constant companion, has now been in the shop for the past 24 hours awaiting the final verdict. And yesterday I finally received the call from Computer ER to inform me the disc drive was non functioning and the data on it not recoverable.   OK so when was the last time I backed the damn thing up…January of last year!  My fault!  You would think a man who deals with technology for a living should know better!  My main work computer I use to do all my image filing and processing on is backed up, by three different sources, in three different locations. One on a 2nd built in hard drive on the same computer, one in the loft on the other side of the studio, and one an external hard drive I can remove and take off site that I keep in a fire safe.  So I am not totally a bonehead when it comes to this technology.   But this has totally put a damper in my workflow the past couple of days.   I feel like I have lost a dear friend who knows all my deepest secrets.

I have set this time aside to begin working on this project, to open my life and begin sharing myself as a photographer of homoerotic art.  I now have to question; is there some cosmic force that is trying to stop me, that possibly thinks what I am doing in wrong or immoral?   I feel this is the first time I have ever attempted such an endeavor, have planned, noted,  journal, and saved money to have this time in particular to focus on myself and my images.

When I began photography, it was simpler.  It was about a box that could contain light, a lens that could focus and channel that light, and a strong desire to see how the universe would avail itself to me.  I put everything into photography.  My days were filled with wonder, observing the world around me. Watching and waiting for the light to change.  Recording movement of time, movement of space, becoming familiar with this concept of recording how I saw my world and my connection to it,  fitting it all into the constrains of a single frame. I had to develop a relationship with the space and the light and look at it from a lot of angles and possibilities.  It was a total exploration. Film (the actual stuff with light sensitive emulsion)  was expensive and the processing of it ate up lots of time forcing  me to really think about what I wanted to say with as few frames a possible.   I used to carry a cardboard frame with my cameras aspect ratio cut into it that I could pull out, hold up and look through and compose my shots before even pulling out my camera.   But now, with the age of digital, I can shoot a thousand images of the same subject just to get the one that works into my sensibility of style, weight, and balance.  It’s now quite extraordinary to work in such a way.  It’s incredible to explore so many possibilities.  Now when I bring a model in, I focus on my interaction with my stubject; the camera just becomes an extension of that interaction.  It’s almost like the camera isn’t there anymore.  The models relax, let themselves become comfortable and secure, and the session always seems to be over just as we are getting started.   I love this response.   I think it’s what gives my images such a provocative edge.  I often shoot for an hour or two and will walk away with 1200 possibilities. My style has definitely developed and is recognizable.  I have shot a lot of images for profiles used on Manhunt and though my name is not attached to the image, people often come to me and say, oh you’re working with so and so. To me this is extraordinary.

One of my passions is shooting classic art.   A perfect day to me is going to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and shooting the classic Greek and Roman statuary.  You may think this sounds kind of static, well it isn’t!  You begin to develop a relationship with an inanimate piece of stone.  This statue of Ugolino and His Sons by the French sculptor Jean-Baptise Careaux captivated me.  At the time I probably spent a good hour trying to capture and understand my relationship between it and my own imagery.  Today Ugolino’s expression, waiting in Dante’s ninth circle of hell, captures the essence of my own angst and feeling of my techno blundering and points a middle finger toward the gods who dare to impede or deny my creative quest.

Does showing a man’s penis make an image pornographic?

When I was first getting into photography and still shooting on film, I had a young gay man come into my studio whom I wanted to shoot nude.   He was very excited by the prospect of seeing what we could create together.  His only stipulation was that he did not want any pictures where he would be naked and show his face in the same image.  He was okay with doing nude torso images from the neck down or face pictures from the waist up.   I agreed and said I would work within those parameters.   Hey, I had a live model who was willing to strip down and allow me to light and explore him naked through my photographic process.

He had a classic form and moved and stood in such a way that I knew would be reminiscent of a Greek sculpture.  I worked very hard to create a lighting design that would make him look fantastic. We had an amazing session and both were excited by what we had created.   I processed the film and printed the contact sheets.  Though the images on the contact sheets were raw still, but I could visualize the beauty which would emerge from the prints.   I called the kid and arranged a meeting, excited to show him what we had created.   When he saw the contact sheets, he too was excited and seemed quite pleased.  I gave him a set to take home because he had a boyfriend he wanted to show.   I headed back into the darkroom and began to work on one of the images. It totally began to come to life.   I printed it on a beautiful flat silver gelatin paper so that the tones and flesh had a smooth velvety finish that looked as if they were actually emerging from the darkness.  Everything fell exactly where I knew it would.  The print was remarkable.  I felt like I had created a masterpiece that could hang in someone’s bathroom, or in an open space, or maybe even a gallery – very classic in its pose, form, and structure.  To me it represented perfection for this type of image.  It captured the essence of the pictorialist style of the photo-secessionists from the early 1900s.   I had been studying the photographers and the movement from this era and was particularly drawn to the images of Fred Holland Day.   I had succeeded on every level to create his style of imagery.  In structure, light fall-off, and soft focus beauty on the flat paper.

I called the kid back and told him what a remarkable image we had created.  I immediately knew something was wrong by the tone of his voice.  He did not want to see the image and did not want to work again because he had shown the image to his boyfriend who said it was pornographic.  His boyfriend did not think he should lower himself to the standards of creating porn.  I was stunned and shocked.   It really got me questioning the distinctions between art and pornography.  It has been a question that has haunted me for most of my photographic career.   In my mind’s eye I had created a remarkable piece of art, yet someone else had seen it as pornographic.   Because there is a penis in the image, does it automatically become pornography?  In a sense, this kind of hurt me creatively.  I felt like I was heading in a positive direction and this reaction made me fearful of asking anyone to pose naked again.  If people saw what I was doing as porn, I would get that kind of reputation, and it would kill any chances of finding models to work with, in our small town.   It also put doubt in my approach and stirred a question in the back of my mind every time I worked with nude images thereafter.  It took me a long time to ask someone to pose nude again.

The kid never saw the final image.  I put it away in a box to be lost with other worthless images I had created.  Now to be pulled out many years later and finally shown here today.  Wow, what was I thinking?  How could I allow someone else to influence such a great part of my creativity and hinder my creative process.

Objectives of The Naked Man Project

My goal and objective in creating The Naked Man Project is to explore my own precepts of art and the creation of male erotic art.  When I first began photography in 1997 my teachers always said “shoot what you know.”  My background was theater and I was a gay man living in the wilds of Montana.

I spent 10 years on the road working as a professional stage manager and lighting designer.  Eventually, I reached a point, growing tired of being nomadic and scrambling for work that I decided to return home.  Montana, as you may have guessed is not a hot bed of professional theater, although it does have some very good things going on.  The fact of the matter is I was born and raised in Montana and my family still lived here.  I had visited or lived in most of the major cities and realized that my small town sensibilities just did not belong in that kind of environment.  My first love true love was with a man. There was something exciting about growing up in Montana as a gay man during an era when it all felt taboo.   Forbidden passion ignited a hidden sub-world of intrigue, mystery, and allure. When you connected with someone you knew it would probably be fleeting, so you had to savor every possible moment and take the experience to it’s fullest sensual potential.   Often times the experience become like an intoxicating dream that remained in your head as a romantic reverie.

The nude male body certainly seemed to have been a taboo subject among modern artists.  To paint, to draw, or to photograph the nude male generally implied you were gay and that fact often needed to remain hidden.  Certainly images were still produced, but most of it remained underground.  It wasn’t until Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1970’s that homoerotic art really began to emerge.  Ironically it was Mapplethorpe’s work that brought me to photography.  One fall, while I was working backstage at a small regional theater, with little to do and a great deal of time on my hands to read, I accidentally received his biography from a mail order book club Mapplethorpe: A Biography by Patricia Morrisroe.  At first I was appalled by the graphic descriptions of his explicit sexual lifestyle.  Yet I was captivated by a man who had the courage to utterly express himself, to explore his own sexuality , and create a remarkable visual representation of his perceptions, experience, and environment though the creation of his  imagery.   I instantly knew this was to become my destiny and when the current theater job finished, I wanted to returned home to begin my own process of discovery.

My goal with this project, is to explore my own artistry and desire and my need to create beautiful images of the male nude. To expose my inner sensual/sexual identity though a daily blog. The project: for one year I will post a new image each day that I have created and examine my need to create it.