Photography byPat McNabb

Big advocate for it. Casual nudity was something that took a bit for me to become comfortable with so it’s a really rewarding feeling now. I’ve had a distance to my body from a diagnosis of an autoimmune disease called Crohn’s disease, so I had felt more comfortable “containing” it than exposing it.

I’m much closer to the opposite end of that spectrum now. I prefer going to nude beaches, hanging by the pool nude, or casually having a fetish gear night with friends (or even myself if I have to do mundane chores around the house.) Performing nude in front of the camera regularly helps!

I’d be surprised if someone was reading this and hasn’t seen me nude…

All are friends now, but there’s a range of relationships I have photographed, from people I’ve met from ads to friends and partners. When I was in school and shooting nonstop I would advertise on Craigslist with an ad about wanting to “photograph people who wanted to be photographed” and link to my website. I had outlined the scenario of photographing by asking for people to take me to spaces they felt safe for expressing their sexuality — namely cruising sites that have disappeared, or ones that are still active today.

There was a lot of generosity of sharing themselves, sometimes their sexual history, loss of partners, or growth that these spaces and visuals provided for them. There was always a conversation beforehand, and sometimes on the way to these spaces, if we traveled together. This was a way to reach a community outside of my immediate relationships and was similarly inspired by how I moved through sexual relationships in terms of anonymous sex.

The people pictured in this work are friends or acquaintances where photography plays a big role in our relationship — whether having become friendly and continuing to photograph together or continuing our “anon fantasy,” where our relationship only exists because there’s a camera present. Natural Pursuits felt really nice for collecting these images and re-engaging with friends who I tend to go to in moments of uncertainty that help get me inspired by photography again.

I view this edit of photos to be self portraits as much as they’re anything else. Most of these pictures are taken with a view camera and I use that process to accentuate the performance of taking photos. Because of the size, the camera has a strong presence and I’m further emphasizing it by setting the stage with hot lights for some performance to happen. I’m always interested in a kind of smearing of a line that divides any “fixed” roles like those between photographer/model/voyeur/participant. There’s always a reason to disrupt any binary foundation, and I think of the act and process of photography as another participant, showing up in different ways and to varying degrees.

I’m jumping in the frame I can’t see or throwing a wrench in the development or chemistry process to get at the vulnerability underpinning the photographic process. When I step in the frame with someone else, I’m responding to the scene or whatever is occurring in the space. I always return to this idea by Diane Arbus when I think about the role of a photographer — where she describes how people look at a picture with a concern for who the photographer is and what their relationship is to the people in the frame — so the slivers and appearances of me are small reminders of that.

I’ve always been interested in the physical limitations of a photograph — seeing three-dimensional objects and making them two-dimensional — and I’ve tried different tactics to address it. The surface of the mirror is emblematic of that, so they have been a favorite and primary format. Working in NYC this has practical reasons as well; the space I photograph in is typically a small, white-walled corner, and mirrors allow for more visual interest in how to utilize that limited space. Mirrors also give the possibility of surprise on how the body is viewed or how space is perceived, where just moving the object around navigates exciting ways of seeing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions.

The picture A Portrait in the Pines is a reflection on a glass door of my body on a bed facing the trees outside on Fire Island. I was interested in the overlap of a faint, reflected body collapsed onto the trees, thinking of the bodies that have inhabited this space. It’s a very transient place, and I’m interested in the trace and impact of bodies on this landscape — both in the room I was in and in the surrounding environment. It’s a place where I feel the landscape holds a sense of its history visually, or how José Muñoz describes the idea of “ghosts” of a place’s past appearing in the present.

I was there with a group of friends this summer, and this was the night before we were evacuated due to the oncoming hurricane, Henri. My Crohn’s happened to be flaring as well, so I went to my room earlier than usual and picked up the camera. Vulnerability of my body and health is a motive I am working on — and of course both the environment and our bodies share that. Formatting them on the same plane is something I feel is a strength in photography, the flattening and extending space simultaneously.

I was really excited to both photograph and edit a group of photos for this. Most if not all other platforms I have shared work with have been a fragile experience due to censorship and prudishness — from social media to exhibiting work — so it was really exciting to have this outlet without having to confront that. This was very freeing and inspiring, so a big thank you for creating this platform. The internet has lost some favorite safe queer spaces, eerily echoing the loss of physical ones, so thank you for creating and inviting us into a new one — it’s incredibly meaningful and impactful.