GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

AUGUST 15, 1997

Evenings Out

Of beautiful men

Photographer Reed Massengill talks about his work and his models

REED MASSENGILL

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Author, photographer and gay man Reed Massengill currently resides in New York City, but he calls Knoxville, Tennessee home. He is currently working on renovating a Victorian home there that belonged to his late friend Trey, who, like many stunningly beautiful men, had been captured on film by Massengill while he was alive. Massengill said that Trey left behind "an unfinished house and an unfinished life"

"This is my way of giving to him half of what he would have had were he alive."

Massengill's work has appeared in various publications, among them the New York Times, Connoisseur, Genre, Forbes, and Interview. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his biography Portrait of a Racist, which chronicled the life of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith, convicted in 1994 of murdering Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers, and a man to whom Massengill's aunt was married for twenty years.

He has released two volumes of male photography; Massengill, published by St. Martin's Press in 1996; and Massengill Men, published by Bruno Gmünder Verlag in 1997. Upcoming projects include a second book of photography, his first calendar released by Phenomenon Factory, and Fag Magnet, a novel that he is co-authoring with a straight friend about "a really strong, somewhat physical relationship between a straight guy and a gay guy."

Massengill spoke with me from New York in an in-depth and candid interview about his work, his passions and stories from his life.

Kaizaad Kotwal: The first time you photographed a nude male it was with a football player at your high school. What made you want to do this?

Reed Massengill: He made me want to do that. He was a straight boy, a football player named Danny with the most beautiful legs. I had known him since elementary school and we had worked on the school newspaper together. For him it was just fooling around. I had a huge crush on him. He was completely oblivious to my desire for him.

Did it take courage to approach him? Were you afraid of a negative reaction?

Absolutely not. I have always been a fairly accurate judge of people's temperaments. I feel people out and intuitively know if they'll go for it.

You have said that you have an incredible gift of being able to “talk people out of their clothes." How did you cultivate this gift and what does it involve?

I cultivated it by practicing it over and over. My secret is unflinching honesty. I don't try to build up to it by saying I am interested in doing head shots or fashion work. I start by telling them I shoot nudes. I'm very upfront and very accommodating of showing them my work. I say, "This is what I do... I'd like to shoot you." Then it's up to them.

Massingill's favorite model, “Billy."

What has been your worst rejection?

The worst would be if someone coldcocked me, so I haven't had a worst. People who have said no have been as business-like as my approach to them. I'm very straightforward and they are as well.

When you photograph someone, what do you hope to achieve?

Ultimately I want a shot that will make the model stop breathing when they see themselves. A photo that they adore so much that they continue to let me photograph them. I suppose that's selfish, but I hope that my work also allows them to see themselves more objectively and say, "Wow, that's a beautiful man!"

In your opinion, what is the line separating art of nude images from pornography?

When I started in the 1980s, I think for me it was an erection that separated the two, but now I'm not so sure. I don't know how to define that fine line. It's a very subjective thing. Much of what is not pornography to me is pornography to someone else.

You have said that you have no formal training as a photographer. What other things in your life or past education have made you an accomplished photographer?

Whether I am accomplished is subjective. I have a journalism and magazine background. Having grown up in Tennessee I was not exposed to the great photographers. My father's parents lived in the country and worked in the soil. The camera revealed to me their connection to the earth. I would sneak around with a telephoto and shoot them from across the creek, mostly in nature, very holistically.

I have immersed myself in photography since leaving home and more recently with vintage physique photography. I'm self-taught in that sense. Also, since 1984 when I saw the evolution of ad campaigns by Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and seeing them become mainstream has also influenced me.

Do you "direct" your models?

I do direct them to varying degrees. Some require immense amounts of attention and some none at all. I tend to have to direct straight models more. Maybe that is because gay men tend to spend more time in front of the mirror to see how they appear to the outside world. But I also direct them as I am shooting so that the models have something to focus on and don't get distracted by the thought, "Oh, I'm standing here with my dick hanging out."

Who has been your favorite model to shoot?

Billy. [The first model Massengill photographed extensively.] Without a doubt. I love the way he looks. Not overly built, not overly beautiful. But photographing him over the last 13 or 14 years has cemented a friendship that under other circumstances would have fallen apart. Billy is sometimes embarrassed by it and has an “aw shucks" kind of attitude but he loves it, he loves the attention.

Who would you like to shoot in the future?

Tony Ward. He's a great eternal beauty the construction of his face. I can look at his face and see a statue from 1,200 years ago. He has a great body but it's his face that I love. I also want to shoot the Brewer twins.

They are so adorable. And I also want to shoot Antonio Sabato, Jr. Right before he started his Calvin Klein campaign, I took him a beautiful 1930s Hollywood-style shot of John Stamos I had done, and I told Antonio that I'd like to shoot him. He never called me. What are the qualities you most like in your models?

Their forthrightness. I like models who tell me what they're comfortable with and what they're not comfortable with. I like those who are not afraid to look at the camera and me.

What are the qualities you dislike most in your models?

A coyness that's false. I get it a lot from gay men I shoot who think, "Oooh, isn't this dirty."

The book is dedicated to Trey. Any significance that you'd like to share here? Trey was my best friend in Knoxville. He was this football player, a frat-boy stud and even though he was 7 or 8 years younger than me, he was like a big brother to me in many ways. He was killed in a car accident just before the Beckwith book came out.

When Trey was killed I felt very strongly that I would lose the physical and emotional bond between us . . . that it would slip away. Dedicating the book to him was a way to keep his name and my name in print forever as a testimony of our friendship and love for each other. In that book we will always be in the same place and the same time for posterity. How did you meet him?

We lived close by and I knew who he was. One day I was walking by his place and he was shirtless in cut-off overalls cutting his shrubbery. I went over and introduced myself and said to him, “I want to photograph you right now, let's go."

We went to a rock quarry, and after the shoot he asked if I'd like to go get a beer after he showered. We were sitting at a table at a place called Old College Inn, kind of a frat hangout, and after the second beer he turned to me and said, "You know, sometimes you look at me kind of funny."

I said, "Well, Trey, I'm a fag, and there's something so beautiful about your nose that I want to put it in my mouth." He cracked up laughing and said that I didn't have the balls. So I reached over the table, grabbed him by both ears and put his nose in my mouth. And I think that cemented our friendship. Trey was the kind of man who if you were honest about who you really were, he was fine with it, no matter who you were.

To what do you attribute the recent explosion of nude male photography in the mainstream?

Several things. Firstly it was the ad world recognizing that it was as okay to use a scantily clad male as it was to use a scantily clad woman to sell something. Because that was commercially acceptable, it became artistically acceptable. Also, I believe, that in the age of AIDS so many gay men have turned in-

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