Photography byBryson Rand

I feel like I am naked around my friends almost as much as we hang out with clothes on. It’s so common in gay bars and any queer beach or outdoor setting. It’s freeing to be naked when you’re around other people. Obviously sometimes it is erotic, but a lot of the time it’s platonic and playful. I have gained a lot of confidence about my body by being in spaces where everyone is naked. Part of it is sticking it to heteronormative culture, but most of it feels like a celebration. Like, “Nothing to hide here!”

I really miss it! I would love to be surrounded by a sea of butts!

I started shooting nudes 8 or 9 years ago to connect with a history of gay and queer photography that celebrates sexuality, desire, and fantasy. Making nudes became a way for me to come to a better understanding of my own sexuality and I wanted to celebrate that.

I grew up in a pretty conservative military family and even though I thought I had sort of “dealt with” the feelings of shame I felt growing up, I realized in my early 30s that I still had some shit to work out. I learned a lot from the people I was making pictures with and found support in these interactions. So many gay and queer men around my age shared similar experiences. Hearing about how they dealt with them was invaluable to me.

By making work that expressed sexuality joyously and generously I was able to work past some of the lingering bad feelings about being gay I inherited as a kid. It isn’t all so heavy — I also make them for the enjoyment of it!

When I make photographs of someone, I want them to enjoy themselves and feel like they are gaining something from the experience as well. A lot of the time people want to be photographed as a way to show off or enact a fantasy and in general to feel good about themselves. I enjoy being able to give people that experience and hope that they see beauty and strength in the resulting photos.

Yes. Photography was a primary way for me to connect with the past and feel connected to the countless queer people that were lost to violence, the closet, and the AIDS pandemic. It gave me a way to give visual form to the spiritual connection that exists between today’s generations and those that preceded us. In some ways my work became a way for me to mourn all the people I missed out on getting to know and learn from due in large part to the AIDS crisis.

I didn’t have any in-person guidance or interaction with older queer people until I was in my 20s living in New York. The pictures that people like Peter Hujar, Nan Goldin, and David Armstrong made were the closest thing I could get to that.

I still find a lot of inspiration in that tradition of work and see it as irrefutable proof of our collective existence. In our current moment there are still a lot of oppressive forces queers have to face and I hope to use my work to combat them and create something that can be a source of joy in the process.

I had a studio from December 2019 to March 2020 and I was making a lot of work there with friends and people I have sex with. For a couple years prior I had been interested in exploring ways of making portraits that were sensuous and tactile without necessarily being erotic or sexual.

It was really fun and exciting to have a studio for the first time in the city and to return to exploring sexual desire in my pictures again. It felt really abrupt to go from having so much interaction with people to not being able to leave my house. I typically don’t like making pictures in my apartment, but I didn’t have much choice. After the initial shock of the pandemic subsided a bit I started to take pics around the house just to keep myself distracted. After a while I began to realize that the light my apartment gets is pretty dramatic and I got excited about that.

My husband Ryan and our dog Frankie became my main subjects, and it has been fun to see if I can still make pictures of them that feel exciting or show them in a way I have not seen them before. My studio mate Patrick McNabb — a fantastic photographer — and I have been in each other’s COVID-19 pods and I have been able to spend time with him during the pandemic. He and I joke about how, whenever we get together, we make dueling portraits of each other, but I find a lot of inspiration from seeing how he works. As a result, I made a lot of pictures of him that I love over the last year. It has been so valuable to have in-person interactions with someone who is interested in the same things I am photographically.

I also got a point-and-shoot camera a couple years ago and I started carrying it around with me whenever I could get outside for a walk, a bike ride, or to meet a friend in a park during the pandemic. I think of these pictures as a growing archive that complements my other work. But I use the point-and-shoot much more casually and have been discovering new ways to make photos. It has taught me to lighten up and has given me a way to continue making work when I can’t be around people indoors. Although the pandemic has limited so much, I am happy to see that I have been able to use the limitations to figure out a different way of working that feels generative.

I think of my work as a continuous endeavor and I can see how the pictures from over the years are related and responding to each other. One connecting thread through all the work is my interest in the ways light and shadow can be used to transform a space and infuse it with emotional intensity. It is part of what keeps photography magical for me and keeping that in mind has kept me interested in making work even though everything is incredibly difficult and bleak right now. I hope my pictures are reminders of joy for people who see them.

With these new pictures of Patrick and Ryan, I want to show the love we share and that we are surviving and strong despite the circumstances. I try to be a responsive artist and part of that means adapting to circumstances I have no control over. I hope the pictures reflect the gratitude I feel for Ryan and Patrick and to have a safe loving home throughout this.