Thor #340
Is there still a perception that sex with another man is a smoldering gun or have we grown beyond that? Today is world AIDS Days and being a gay man who has lived and loved his entire adult live throughout the epidemic, it has had the greatest impact on my sexual life. [read more]
Published: December 1. 2011
Cheyenne #192
The reality that the loss of humanity, dignity, and pride was suddenly too great to be ignored any longer. I as a gay man could no longer look the opposite direction or hide. A reality hit my world like a boisterous clap of thunder and I know my world would be irrevocable changed forever. [read more]
Published: December 2, 2011
Chad #120
Why is it as a gay culture we are just naturally conditioned to reject football and pass it off as a brutal collision of masculinity? It seems ironic that the very archetypes of athletes, which many gay men oppose, become the object of their deepest desire. [read more]
Published: December 4, 2011
Brandon #229
I have often pondered how a young ranch kid like myself was so drawn to work in arts and entertainment. Last night that connection became clear watching Red River, the magic, the beauty, the sexual allure of the American west, my west, stirred my emotions , presented in the flicker of a film and watching Montgomery Cliff enter my universe. [read more]
Published: December 5, 2011
Matthew #139
I feel like I am utterly spent today!!!! I have been working all morning on shows for the University and on so many other things. I have shut myself so deep inside the studio trying to catch up. I am beginning to feel the effects of not taking enough breaks as I am becoming very tired. [read more]
Published: December 6, 2011
Cheyenne #102
As an artist, I have always avoided politics. The daily yammering of it on new stations like Fox News, bores the living death out of me. It’s not that I don’t want to stay informed; I just don’t want to know all the details of everything going on. It feels like politics and arts rarely mix and it seems the people who are quite interested in politics are not the slightest bit interested in the creation of art, unless it becomes public, and contains something they deem immoral. [read more]
Published: December 7, 2011
On Becoming A Woman #3
A Unique Difference
I saw a post this morning about a young man named Jacob Rogers at Cheatham County Central High in Ashland City, TN who killed himself yesterday morning because he could no longer take the bullying over his sexuality. According to the article he had spent four years at the school. But his senior year got so bad that he recently dropped out.
Published: December 8, 2011
Greek Statue at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Why is that so many of us don’t feel that we can live up to our potential or achieve what we often feel in our hearts? Though I feel appreciative that I have lived a fairly creative life and had the opportunity to follow my desire, I still feel I have lived in the shadows of self-doubt for large portion of it. I always think so much of it had to do with my sexuality and going against the norm. [read more]
Published: December 9, 2011
Corey #503
Most everyone is just an ordinary person you would meet off the street. It’s actually quite remarkable the transformation many of them go through during the process and the qualities they take on in my images, may not be what you would see in them passing them on the street. To me this is what makes the process so utterly fascinating because I believe everyone has something remarkable about themselves, if they are allowed to tap into it. [read more]
Published: November 10, 2011
Jeremy #104
This has certainly been a year for me to get back in touch with my own idealistic dreams from youth and allowing those creative dreams to prosper. I certainly began the year in a different place then what I will end it. I have faced a lot of fears and anxieties and over come so many of the obstacles that held me back. [read more]
Published: December 11, 2011
Ken Kneeling
There are so many subtitles to the art of photography that the expression becomes unique to each individual. It becomes a matter then I turning off the automatic settings and making choices for your self. Defining exactly what you want the image to convey through the use of various lens and focal points of those lens, to stop of blur a motion, to create a depth within the image that defines your point of focus. [read more]
Published: December 12, 2011
Anonymous #188
Probably the deepest level Gilbert and I bonded was that we were both gay. Though he was much older then I was, he was fascinated by how open I was and how the culture around us was becoming more open and the world seemingly more tolerant. The reclusive side of Gilbert’s stemmed from a certain amount of shame he felt from being gay and the difficulty he was having with his own acceptance of his sexuality. [read more]
PublishedL December 13, 2011
Jeremy #540
I often see a vision that becomes quite sensual to me, a beautiful man, standing naked, in the shadows of the room. I watch the light play on his skin in the darkness as only the shape of his figure is outlined by the highlights across his sensuous skin as he moves about in that darkness, lit only by a streetlight, faint, dim, dappled with emotion, spilling through the window. [read more]
Published: December 14, 2011
Nate & Zach #258
As I perused the list I began to realize I had not seen a single movie that was released in 2011. As I began to cut and past titles into Rotten Tomatoes, a movie information site that I used to adore and followed religiously on a daily basis, I realized how much this industry has changed and it was now like navigating a mine field to even find a spot to paste those titles due the site being taken over by a barrage of moving advertising. [read more]
PublishedL December 15, 2011
Corey #260
I am a bit lost these last couple of weeks of this project. It’s that time of the year when in my mind I have already begun reflecting on the year. I keep asking myself have I accomplished what I set out to do in the beginning? What else needs to be said within the year of a man? I have put a lot of ideas and concepts out there, but have I really put out there who I really am? [read more]
Published: December 16, 2011
Jonathan #106
I have lived a great deal of my life in angst, fear, and doubt. In many ways it has crippled my capacity to actually see myself for who I was and what I was becoming. Somehow I feel so many of the choices I made in my youth have not prepared me for what is to come in the upcoming years. [read more]
Published: December 17, 2011
Ty #135
I was looking though Facebook last night and some black & white images caught my eyes that were rather stunning. Soon I was in a fascinating gallery of images that looked like they had actually been shot on film and then printed. I shot the photographer Russ Osterweil a message asking if indeed he was still shooting and processing film. [read more]
Published: December 18, 2011
John #380
I have had a weekend to wind down after a terrible last week of trying to get things done before the years end and it gave me a chance to reflect back over what I have actually accomplished over the course of this year and I now see how truly impressive it has been. To be a lowly cowboy from Montana, to shoot creative artistic images of nude to near naked men, to expose myself, thoughts, ideas, dreams for others to share and to make my own dream come true has been quite an undertaking and I will end this year contented. [read more]
Published: December 19, 2011
Anonymous #122
What are the real barriers to HIV prevention? As a gay man who has lived through this epidemic, this question keeps haunting my thoughts. It seems we live in a time where disclosure of one’s status signifies discrimination. When people still feel shame for becoming infected and their pride and dignity can be stripped away. [read more]
Published: December 20, 2011
Defying All Morality #639
The message here was strong and clear to me, as a young boy growing up in the small town of Superior in the mountains of western Montana, that I was free to love whom I chose despite any irreconcilable differences from the world I lived. [read more]
Published: December 21, 2011
Dean #122
I know I still have self-doubt about my own self-image but recently I have begun looking at myself differently in the mirror. I am seeing something I had not recognized before, a different version of myself, this time not middle-aged, with wrinkles, who has gained a little weight, but now with a vibrant vitality. [read more]
Published: December 22, 2011
Chad #329
Though I have reached out into the world I still feel like I am confined within my small provincial town of Missoula. I know it is time to begin thinking past myself and begin letting my idealism soar beyond who I have become here. [read more]
Published: December 23, 2011
Matthew #117
As budding artists we are often reluctant to look beyond the narrow scope of the world we feel safe in and dream of what may become possible. A great deal of my life has been defined by limitation, not feeling worthy of this mighty process of creation. [read more]
Published: December 24, 2011
Jeremy #225
The howling wind feels, as if it is about to burst through the walls as it pelts icy rain against the window. A winter storm is raging outside, in the darkness. It is now three eighteen a.m. My blood turns to ice in my veins, listening, as I lie awake sleepless, a sickness fills the pit of my stomach, as my breath becomes shallow and I am aware of a feeling I have not felt in decades. [read more]
Published: December 26, 2011
Travis #724
I feel a lot of emotions beginning to overwhelm me now that I am in the final week of the project. I now have models that are becoming reluctant to be shown in the project because it has grown so much and suddenly when their names are Googled it leads to this project and some of them are reluctant to have this much exposure, so to speak. [read more]
Published: December 27, 2011
Nate #228
All that I have written here is about my world as I have experienced it. There was never any intended malice directed any at specific individual or group. If you feel you have been bitten by these words, perhaps you have recognized the truth within yourself. I have tried to be honest in my accounting of who I am and only write about the things I know. [read more]
Published: December 28, 2011
Travis #384
I began looking at my objectives I set on the second day of this project when this project began. “My goal here is to explore my own artistry and desire to create beautiful images of the male nude and expose my inner sensual/sexual identity though a daily blog. The project: for one year I will post a new image each day that I have created and examine my need to create it.” [read more]
Published: December 29, 2011
Chad #513
Has this project actually become a reflection of myself? Have I become Narcissus merely looking into a pool of water only seeing myself? As the project comes to a close I am beginning to question the process from which it all springs. I wonder if showing a man exposed and the process of exposing myself has really been appropriate. [read more]
Published: December 30, 2011
Ken Standing
You know me, I have got a song from musical theater buzzing through my head this morning and it seems appropriate for the final blog of this year long project. The second act of the musical RENT opens with a fantastic production number call Season’s of Love in which the cast asks, “How do you measure a year in the life?” [read more]
Published: December 31, 2011
