Two days of shooting, phone calls, meals, time in the woods, and a conversation. A glorious fever dream.

The music functions as a sonic landscape—an equal to dialogue. Sound is the context.

Paul: We’re here having a conversation with Nate.

Nate: Yeah, that’s right.

Paul: What’s your initial thoughts?

Nate: It’s different seeing my body from a different perspective, than just the mirror. I like it.

Paul: I, for one, really don’t want to be photographed. It has to be a very specific way. I’m anti-photography over here. Something that I noticed when I was putting together this edit was that I prioritized our time together, and so I really didn’t prioritize the photography.

What that means visually is that these photos look like they’re from a bunch of different scenes. They’re not really cohesive. That’s not necessarily good or bad – lends to a lot of different looks and feelings. How do you feel about it as one body?

Nate: Overall, I really liked the project. I like how that’s in different locations at different days, and you can kind of just see they’re kind of like just a snapshot. Just looking through a photo album of naked me.

Paul: What was your experience while we were shooting, because a lot of these, I’m not really giving you direction.

Nate: I was thinking about what the outcome would look like. I was also trying to get a sense of how I look in the actual moment. “What does that look like? How does it look captured on film?”

Paul: I haven’t put you in a video yet.

Nate: That’s true. I haven’t been in a video.

Paul: One of the images that I recently found is the side portrait of you in the backyard. We’re just in good light, and it’s just an accurate shot of you.

Nate: Yeah, there was no pose there. I was just looking straight ahead. I remember you walking around me, and I was just sitting thinking, “What’s he doing?” It turned out really good. I like it.

Paul: The photo where you’re on the bed and the light coming in that room wasn’t the best quality of light. That was a challenge of that setup. The socks look good on you, and there’s just something intimate.

Nate: Yeah, I like it. It shows me in a light that I’ve never seen myself before. I’m kind of relaxed. I’m just chilling. I have a relaxed position. Wasn’t expecting… whenever I saw this, I forgot we even did stuff like that.

Paul: There’s one image of your backside putting on or taking off your clothes. That seems to be a theme here, but it just captures your backside. It’s very hairy. You became hairier, somehow. It’s a detailed type shot – how your body is and how your fur is, creating textures. I think we just captured something really nice in the moment.

Nate: I agree. It is hairier than I thought it would be. I just like the way everything came out, the way that my leg is flexing. I just think it looks good.

Paul: These photos don’t have to be technically as perfect as I want them to be. I can still like them, and I can still show them. This is real life. My photos are going to have flaws despite a concept or a vision.

Paul: So in our second day of shooting, we started off in the woods, right?

Nate: That’s right. At a local park.

Paul: A really beautiful park. I thought that the trees would be closer together. It was just shooting at 2:00 PM with no coverage. There’s a piece of tree coverage that the light wasn’t terrible. Didn’t really give us much room for anything. I was trying to capture elements that reveal pieces of you. Not necessarily, it’s not all-encompassing because these are just snapshots. This is just really an ongoing conversation, visually. Maybe you’ll do more projects with me.

Nate: It was fun doing it – getting to the locations and setting up and getting everything ready, and then just taking the time to do it.

Paul: I think for the next ones I’ll just have to dream bigger, throw you out of a…We’ll save that for next time. So I feel fortunate that I have friends that will be a part of my ideas. It’s actually quite harder than people think to get people to be a part of queer photography or any of this work. So the fact that I have friends that will be a part of this does mean a lot. So I do look forward to who knows what we might do next or make.

Nate: Looking forward to it as well.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.

Gay Tv 2025