As a younger man, I did not have a very good self-image of myself. I was tall and skinny, clumsy and extremely awkward. I wasn’t really comfortable with my body and it seemed at the time the only thing really going for me was that I was young and had beautiful skin. My looks were average, nothing out of the ordinary. I have a brother Mark, a year and a day younger, who was stunning and everything I was not. I was never quite comfortable with my own self-image and didn’t take much pride in taking care of myself. My twenties were lived in a world of dark angst, not really sure where I belonged or what I should do. You see I was held back in the first grade to repeat the following year with my brother Mark. This put me a year ahead of everyone else physically, so when puberty hit I was awkwardly out of sync with my classmates. My father encouraged sports but I was so gangly, all legs and arms which I could not control. I think this became an embarrassment to him to see such a spastic uncoordinated kid only out there humiliating himself. I really did try! In many ways, this sort of embarrassment becomes a physiological hurdle I felt I was constantly trying to outgrow through my twenties and into my thirties. Being athletically challenged my body didn’t develop much muscle, but I had a very high metabolism and seemed to burned off everything I consumed and could not gain any bulk. My mind worked in quirky and unusual ways. I loved things that were absurd and silly, things like Mad Magazine and it’s quirky look at movies and the world that surrounded us. Then discovering that I was gay added another level to my discomfort and oddity. I was made fun of by others because I was so different. All I wanted was a normal life and it seemed the harder I tried to become normal the more absurd my life became and verged on down right discomfort. I think times have changed, because I still recognize the awkwardness in others but there is now more of an acceptance in our culture to celebrate uniqueness.

I have recently begun working with a young man, whom I see as the mirror of my youthful self. He came to me some time back and asked if I would work with him on some images. Looking at this Facebook profile, I was skeptical that he would become too quirky and not be able to pull off the style I have been exploring. As I met him, I began to see the awkward sadness in his eyes that I recognized within myself from that age. We began to shoot and an amazing sexy man began to emerge. Since we began shooting, his perceptions of how he views himself have changed. He has begun to work out and every shoot there is a noticeable transformation as he seems to become more comfortable with his body. Yesterday he came into the studio for a shoot and I could see this magnificent transformation from the awkwardness from which we first shot. It took me a decade to achieve what he has done in months. When I work with him, it’s like looking into the window of myself. It become like amazing dance of beauty and grace where all of my humanity is laid bare and I can only see the glimmer of all the marvelous things about to emerge. Thanks Corey for allowing me this voyage back into myself, for your honesty and fearless integrity to allow me to see within and share your world.