Your portfolio is pretty NSFW – what American idols of erotica in photography would you say have inspired that? I’m reading Alexis Penny’s book right now and its blowing my mind.
Hari Nef, Alexis Penny, Bailey Stiles, Sam Banks and Colin Self aka the amazing queens of Chez Deep have been really major in changing the discourse around drag and queer culture in New york. Gay activism is a big part of your work – who do you think is emerging right now as one of the fore-runners for your generation in terms of gay activism in art? I had the opportunity to photograph the living legends and unknown founders of the gay rights movement in the south. I went to New Orleans too, that was pretty fun. My life is sort of dominated by that, so photographing it only felt natural. With the help of my SVA-appointed mentor Phillip Gefter I came up with the working bracket of “Queer Cognitive Dissonance” which refers to the storm in your mind that brews when two opposing views come together, as viewed through a queer lens. I’ve always been interested in contrasting dualities and this one was prominent in my life at the time. I was intrigued by the notion of being so physically close with someone, the closest you can possibly be, which is to say inside of them, while being completely emotionally distant and removed. I was no stranger to this scene but something about it this time around had me thinking critically about the act and the larger implication on the gay community. I had just broken up with my partner and was having a lot of anonymous sex with guys from Grindr and Craigslist. Tell us a bit about your graduate portfolio?Ī lot was happening in my life at that time and I dealt with it the best I knew how which was to obsessively photograph it. I was 15 and didn’t know any better so I started shooting for him. He messaged me on myspace and said “Hey, I like your photos, and you’re not too bad looking yourself”. I started as a “serious” photographer when I was 15, I was making portraits of my friends and putting them online, eventually I was approached by LA designer Brian Lichtenberg who stole those designs from Alex Kazemi. My mom is a sculptor and painter and my dad designs truss, I grew up going to gallery openings and foreign films, art has always been a big part of my life. When using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo check the safe search settings where you can exclude adult content sites from your search results Īsk your internet service provider if they offer additional filters īe responsible, know what your children are doing online.Tell us a bit about your artistic background? When did you first get into photography as a serious career?īoth of my parents are artists of a sort. Use family filters of your operating systems and/or browsers Other steps you can take to protect your children are: More information about the RTA Label and compatible services can be found here.
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