Say My Name

I woke up a bit earlier than normal this morning, and even though my boyfriend stirred, he did not wake as I left the bed, so I got myself some leftover coffee -- I always drink it iced anyway, even in the winter -- and sat to allow myself wake-up time with mindless internet clicking.  First I scrolled through Facebook to see what my night-owl friends had posted, which was, as usual, very little of interest, and then I turned to Twitter.  I found this:

"Too much action: The gay sex event that made me a prudehttp://slnm.us/zCwYUU0  #SalonArchives"  

I clicked it, even though lately Salon has been annoying me, because I thought it might resonate.  And it did.  I didn't have a single event, and while I concede I must have been doing it wrong, I found my own Black Party experience to be more boring and depressing than anything else, but I did experience a transition from my exploratory mid-20s into finding the extreme sexual behaviors of many gay men to be tiresome.  I don't know that I'd use the word prude for myself, but I did definitely feel a connection to what the piece was conveying.

Then I got to the bottom, and I guess I must have skimmed past the byline, because I saw the name Thomas Rogers and the connection suddenly felt inexplicably greater, because the author's name is so similar to my own.  So, of course then I had to check out more of what this person had written and I found an article, a more recent one, it turns out, titled "No. 1 Thomas Rogers in the world," about the act of googling one's one name, and of couse I had to read that too.

I've googled my own name, as I'm sure we all have, and in fact my decision to use my full name, which no one ever calls me, in my professional life, came about from discovering that there was a football player named Charlie Rogers who I never thought I'd be able to surpass in a name search.  So the article was fun for me, especially due to the similarity of our names, as when the author points out that Rogers is 54th most common name in the US, and the famous people who've spoiled it for us, well, I get that.  I was a bit surprised that he didn't mention one of the banes of my existence, the Thomas Rogers who was responsible for creating Charlie the Tuna, you know, "Sorry, Charlie," which I've been hearing my whole life, but I suppose if that guy, who is long deceased, isn't ranking very high on google than it's not necessarily cogent to the piece. But I must confess I read the article with another agenda, an almost embarrassing one.  Since I use my full name professionally, and my middle name is Thomas, and none of my names are particularly memorable, I sometimes get listed as "Thomas Charles Rogers" or just "Thomas Rogers" and so I wondered, would he mention me?  Duh, of couse he wouldn't mention me, but still, I hoped.

The last paragraph contained this:  "A few months ago, a new Thomas Rogers had arrived on the scene. He was an aspiring DJ and 'erotic photographer' who lived in San Francisco."  

Oh my god, that's me.

I mean, I never aspired to be a DJ -- I used to co-produce original electronic/dance music which is actually not at all like being a DJ, but it's also a common mistake -- and I like to think of myself as way more than just an "erotic" photographer, though given the way google works, I can certainly see why it would seem like that's what I do.  I did live in San Francisco, up until two weeks ago.

"He also really liked posting photos of himself holding a very large appendage."

Oops, guilty as charged.  I suppose I knew that would come back to get me eventually, as I'm sure it's not even done coming back to get me.  I did say earlier that I wouldn't use the word "prude" to describe myself, right?  All those self-portraits, marks that I've left on my own name, impossible to scrub away now, are part of my own journey from a self-loathing closet dweller to whatever it is that I am now, and while I may blush at their mention, I am not ashamed of them.  

I've always had an uneasy relationship with my name, but this Thomas Rogers guy seems pretty cool.  Maybe I'm starting to like it better.  Maybe after another coffee, I'll be able to say for sure.

Two Self-Important Self-Portraits

#1

One day in April of this past year, I was in New York City, and I was out shooting with Jerry (who I'd been hanging out with outside of our extensive shooting schedule) and afterwards we went to a restaurant in Chelsea for lunch.  Our waiter was a sassy gay whose name, and I swear I'm not making this up, may have Tiki.  He took a liking to us, or perhaps a disliking, or some sort of interest, or maybe he treated all his customers this way, but he had lots of questions for us.  Then he asked the doozy: Are you guys together?  I hesitated.  Jerry didn't, he said yes.  And so, sort of just like that, Jerry and I were together.

The restaurant where that took place is now gone, having lasted not even quite as long as its predecessor.  I think it's a thing in NYC, to open a restaurant or club to great fanfare and as soon as people aren't lining up to get in, close it down and start over with a new name and new concept.  Oh, NYC, I wanna squeeze your weird pretentious little cheeks.

Last weekend I shot a self-portrait reflected in the window of what used to be that restaurant where that happened.

Self-portrait, Manhattan, 10.14.12

#2

Last winter I came back to New York for the first time after moving away, still somewhat emotionally fragile, for the altogether joyous experience of a day of rigorous medical testing at Weill-Cornell Medical Center, tests to determine my eligibility for a surgery that would end up happening a six weeks later.  At the time however, I didn't know when, or if at all, it would happen.  I spent the week leading up to my tests in Beacon, with my parents, but after the tests were done, I decided to stay a week in Manhattan, with my friend Andrew, in Chelsea, awaiting the results of the tests in a somewhat less stressful place, and having, hopefully, goodness help me, some fun.

I didn't have that much fun.  It was cold, as New York City is in December, and it was too close to the holidays to really get any of my friends to commit to doing anything with me.  Spending time with Andrew was great, as it always is, but I felt like I spent a lot of time alone.  I spent a lot of time out with my camera even when it was really too cold to be doing so, and during that week, I took a self-portrait in a telephone booth, or what passes for telephone booths these days, down the street from Andrew's apartment.  I used that picture as my main profile pic on some social networking sites for a while, because nothing says "mental stability" like a blurry photo in a random reflective surface half-obscured by meaningless graffiti.  Nothing, I tell you.

Last weekend, on the same walk as the self-portrait above, eight blocks away, I repeated the phonebooth-near-Andrew's self portrait location.  I do stuff like that, because I'm deep like that.

Self-portrait, Manhattan, 10.14.12

Brent, shoot #1

Before I can get to the more recent photos of Brent and his boyfriend Don that I'm so proud of, I feel like I should share at the very least some of the photos I did with just Brent when we first met.

Brent, San Francisco, 7.25.11

It was his idea to have lunch.  We'd only been chatting on the internet for a mere seven years (I do not exaggerate, for once) so once it finally came to pass that we were in the same city at the same time, lunch, at the very least, seemed a foregone conclusion.  I, however, do not usually settle for just that if I can get more, and I knew Brent had a good deal of modeling experience so of course I made my pitch about somehow combining a photoshoot with our lunch.

Brent, San Francisco, 7.25.11

Brent, San Francisco, 7.25.11

We were both in transition at that moment.  I'd just come back to San Francisco, after my life in Brooklyn had appeared to crumble beneath me, and thought my living situation there might be temporary.  Brent had just moved to Palm Springs but didn't like it there and was already feeling out the possibility of a change.  It was there, in a moment of groundlessness, that we intersected.

Brent, San Francisco, 7.25.11

Brent, San Francisco, 7.25.11 

Brent, San Francisco, 7.25.11

Brent is truly one of the sweetest people I've ever had to good fortune to meet.  Also his vegetatrian lasgana is just sick, and the fact that he could get me to eat vegetarian anything is a testament to how much I like him. But that may all be a story for another day.

Brent, San Francisco, 7.25.11

Dino: happy birthday too

It's also Dino's birthday today, and I actually do know how old he is.  He hired me last year right before his big milestone fiftieth, just in case there was truth to the myth that gay men are actually human versions of Cinderella's carriage, and that when the clock strikes midnight on their fiftieth birthday, they may turn into pumpkins, or at least suddenly look like Donald Trump or something.

Dino, San Francisco, 8.27.11

It's just a myth!  A year later, Dino is as hot (as well as being an all around awesome human) as he was when I shot him.  A myth, people!

Happy birthday Dino.

Hey, it's Alan's birthday!

I have no idea how old Alan is today, but I'm sure it's in the low 20s, like a New York winter day, crisp and bracing.  He's one of my favorite cohorts, er, collaborators.  I've shot lots of guys but no one else has ever showed up with two roller bags full of wardrobe options, black eye makeup, or put a filthy old rope in his mouth for the sake of THE ARTZ.

Alan, New York City, 6.28.11

I'm sure I'll be giving Alan a full post or two or seven later, but for today, happy birthday buddy.

Lucas, shoot #1

Lucas, San Francisco, 6.6.11

I know Lucas from the gym, originally. In San Francisco, it's pretty easy to feel like you know someone just because you see them in the same place, at approximately the same time, every damn day of your life. Over the years, we worked our way up to a solid nod and occasional hello, culminating in, yes, an exchange of names. Eventually we ran into each other in a bar, and with my inhibitions sufficiently lowered, I approached and asked him about the possibility of a shoot. I'm really super shy and never do stuff like that, but I figured I had nothing to lose except a few more tattered shreds of dignity. He expressed interest but then it happened in that "didn't happen" way, and I moved away.

Lucas, San Francisco, 6.6.11

A year and a half later, he sent me an email, with no recollection that we were supposed to shoot together, and no knowledge that I had, in fact, moved away: "Haven't seen you in a while, but I just saw some work that you've done, it's quite beautiful."

That pretty much sums up my relationship with Lucas. 

 

Lucas, San Francisco, 6.6.11

I was touched and brought up the idea of the shoot again, believing it to be a lost cause, but he took the bait. I was living in Brooklyn at the time, but a few months later, when I moved back to San Francisco because I'm incapable of picking a coast and sticking to it, within days of my re-entry into the pacific time zone, I shot these photos of him. I would go on to shoot him two more times, as of this writing, and hope for more. (It's been discussed.)

Lucas, San Francisco, 6.6.11

Lucas, San Francisco, 6.6.11 

Lucas, San Francisco, 6.6.11

Alexey

I met Alexey on Grindr.  For those who might not know what that is, Grindr is a mobile app that uses GPS, or the chips implanted at the bases of our skulls, to allow its users to chat and possibly meet people who are in close proximity.  And by "people" I truly mean "gay people."  You must know where that means, that everyone uses this app for sex, but not me, your intrepid photographer, which by the way feels like an innuendo waiting to happen, I only use it to lure unsuspecting models to my photographic lair.  Or something less creepy sounding.  Yeah.  Pretty much anything would be less creepy sounding.

So back to Alexey.  Turns out he was just a few blocks away and so I packed up my gear and headed over.  I didn't bring my own lighting so I improvised by returning to my lo-fi roots and going with a noirish feel.  My brother had a cat named Noir, but I wasn't thinking about that when I was shooting Alexey.

Alexey, Manhattan, 10.5.12

It was fun.  I hope to shoot Alexey again in a situation where I can better control my euphemisms, and the light.