Over the years, I have gotten a great many compliments on my photos. Photos that in case you didn't know, were photographed by me.
But what brought me to self-photography? Like many presently good things for myself, it's a matter of making a negative into a positive. In this case, the negative is the racism displayed by various facets of the gay "art" community.
My first photos to get me in the industry were taken back in the early 2000s with a flip-phone. And if you recall back then, photos from your cellphone had a blue hue to them. Those pics are partly how I got my very first porn gig of doing a live solo show for a website called ShowGuys.com.
Afterwards, I invested in a real camera and took the photos that started one of my too many wasted trips to Lucas Entertainment. I also sent those pics to other studios along with pics from a photoshoot I won in a porn contest. Back then, predominately white porn studios had no interest in casting a Black man as a bottom. Even a racist scumbag named Troy at Falcon Studios back then gave me the excuse of "calling me when it was the right fit".
With my look then compared to that studio's other models, that excuse could only mean one thing. 😒And the compliance with it by the other performers, then and now is why I'm weary of getting too involved with studio-based gay porn actors .
Sadly, I suspect that the porn director I worked with most, Tyson Cane photoshopped his photos purposely to make sure the models on his roster had limited opportunities outside of him. For the type of photoshop he did, which was overdone, could still get a porn studio to hire you...if you were white or light-skinned Latino, but not if you were medium to dark-complexioned person of color.
Although Tyson Cane often tried to assimilate whiteness with his productions, he would have been a complete fool to be unaware of the porn industry's racist double standard. One that allows a white or light-skinned model to have such overdone photos and still get work. Meanwhile, if the porn actor is Black, that porn actor is easily disregarded and discarded.
And that is what I think happened to me. For Tyson Cane's pics were most definitely overly photoshopped, and my involvement with former pornstar Will Clark's charity events and the big name pornstars that put me in interactions with put me in a position unlike most of the other models on Tyson Cane's roster. It gave me a possible in to big name porn companies.
Make no mistake, Tyson Cane is an idiot, but he also exhibits the typical traits of a porn director. Especially one of the most prominently negative... rabid insecurity. Rabid by way of them not seeing how it is all too often their own actions that cause people to leave them.
In any case, I got tired of photos in which I did not look like myself. The straw that broke the camel's back was how Will Clark invited me to be one of the porn performers on his Bad Boys On The Hudson Sea Tea. We were asked to bring photos to sign for fans at a Meet-and-Greet at the end of the cruise. Listening to the ignorance of Tyson Cane, I got either 4 x 6, or 5 x 7 photos. Because Tyson Cane said, his "main thing to consider is cost". Meanwhile, all of the other pornstars had what is customary, 8 x 10s. Following Cane's idiotic advice made it quite difficult for patrons to carry my photo. Because they were trying to hold onto about 6 photos...when all but 1 is not an 8x10. So people kept dropping it. But I made up for it when I got invited to do Bad Boys On The Hudson the following year.
The next year, I moved into a new place. Taking my own photos. For Bad Boys On The Hudson Sea Tea, not only did I come back with 8x10s like I should have the first time. But I also gave patrons a choice between 2 photos. Some patrons were so sweet that I let them have one of each.
Besides that, one of my greatest accomplishments from that return to self-photography is how all of the photos featured for my part in the pornstar interview book "Ultimate Starz" by Owen Keehnen were not taken by porn studios like practically all of the other models. They were instead taken by the pornstar himself, ME.
Once I started submitting those photos, people started expressing interest. Even with that new interest however, porn companies maintained their racist double standard. Such as how Chi Chi LaRue and Doug Jeffries' people wanted me for a movie. BUT only considered me if I was planning to come out to California on my own. Meanwhile, I know for a fact of how they (the studio) have flown out white and light-skinned Latino performers.
In spite of instances such as that, once I officially retired from studio-based porn, other opportunities arose. Such as the times I modeled for the Leslie-Lohman Drawing Studio, my appearance in Next Door Magazine were all gigs brought forth by my self-photography. At one point, I was in talks to possibly model for The LGBT Community Center's Drawing Group. But by the time I checked back in to continue those talks, which was not long after, the person choosing models had changed. And since I followed the schedule via Instagram, I saw that had come to not have the same diversity including Black models like when I was in talks to possibly model for them.
This racism in art (of all places) is synonymous with many photographers who claimed to have interest in photographing me. However, never doing their part in keeping the communication going when I replied to their interests. And I'm sure if some of them read this, they will refuse to correct or apologize for their falling off. Simply out of their own unjustified ego and avoidance of accountability. Even when their New York-based portfolio proves quite lacking in both number and/or variety in types of medium to dark-complexioned male models. Quite shameful when they reside in such a multi-colored and multi-ethnic mecca that is New York City.
An overwhelming majority of photographers still use that criteria of gym-rat physique and bald head when casting medium to dark-complexioned models, but allow white to caramel brown models have more variety in build. Sometimes that variety in build has so much less definition that these photographers border on endorsing pedophilia with their photography.
In any case, now you know what led me to my self-photography. Various photographers claiming interest proved themselves to be racist and unreliable. At least for my Black skin and build.
For this reason, I must use this article to give a shoutout to Manon Productions, LLC & Male Form Photos - 2 photographers who expressed interest in photographing my brown skin, and kept the communication happening for it to come to fruition.
IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT, YOU HAVE TO DO IT YOURSELF.
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