This might become a curriculum, at the least, a walk through some of the books on my shelf (I keep mistyping "shelf" as "self"). It is by no means comprehensive. My calling them queer may say more about me than them. These are some people who washed up on my shore and whose work has collected in the nooks and crannies of my mind.
[I'm posting this while it's rough and developing. Someone asked last night "where are you teaching?" A good question. Friday, 25 July 2025]
Minor White, the founding editor of Aperture who has many homoerotic images before he moved to Rochester NY, when he channelled that into more abstract work. He also integrates the spiritual into image making and image viewing. And he wrote the definitive tech guide to the Zone System. And. And. And.
Duane Michals, who I came across in a gallery while visiting a friend and lover in New Haven CT in the 1970s. Who showed the world how to cruise on a city street, and so much more. Celebrating great gay poets - Constantine Cavafy, Walt Whitman. And who writes such poetic text on his photographs. And who even today shows us his overflowing joy.
David Wojnarowicz, just a few years younger than me (I was 3 when he was born), chased his dreams across New York, to Paris and back, and lived on the edge of his anger and love, until, as he said, his ashes were left on the steps of the FDA. Thank you for Rimbaud in New York. Thank you for Peter Hujar death photographs. Thank you for fire in you which could not be contained in any one art form.
Peter Hujar, David's mentor and lover and so much more. A master photographer. A master printer. He stepped away from success in the fashion industry to do what he loved. Photographs of animals, of desiccated bodies in the catacombs under Rome, of friends and lovers, of himself in motion, of the city at night. When he died, David made haunting photographs of Peter and then moved into Peter's apartment where he lived out his life, using the darkroom, continuing on their shared path.
Arthur Tress, whose surreal dreamscapes of the male body captivated my imagination.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya. We share a camera, the Lumix GF1, visible in some of his photographs (though he's since moved on to other higher resolution gear more suited to sitting on a tripod and making large prints). Layered images. Queer images. Personal history. Collective history.
Glimpses of Others
Rotimi Fani-Kayode
Catherine Opie
Jess Dugan
Shawn Rowe
Kelli Connell
Tim Carpenter
Richard Renaldi
Alvin Baltrop
Darrell Ellis
Patric McCoy