A new collection. Twelve couples. Now casting.
Love, Life
Life while in love.
I’m making a collection about what love actually looks like on a Tuesday. Not weddings, not engagement shoots, not the version you post. Coffee before either of you has said anything. The hike you’ve done so often you don’t talk on it. Dinner in a kitchen too small for two people to cook in.
Twelve gay male couples, photographed in Utah over the coming year.
Why twelve
I went looking for research on couples like us, half expecting the usual grim reading, and found something else.
On the measures researchers use — satisfaction, commitment, closeness — same-sex couples come out roughly level with everyone else. Where the difference shows up is in the ordinary machinery. We start disagreements more gently and stay warmer through them. We’re better at calming each other down mid-argument. We divide the dishes and the laundry by who minds it least rather than by who’s supposed to. None of that is a headline. All of it is a Tuesday.
The other half is harder. The thing that turns up again and again isn’t being gay — it’s the cost of concealment. The daily arithmetic of managing what other people are allowed to know. And that cost isn’t paid by someone hiding because they’ve made a bad choice. It’s paid because of what makes hiding necessary in the first place.
Put those together and you have this project. The good part happens at home, unphotographed, because nobody thinks a Tuesday is worth a picture. The expensive part is about not being seen.
So: twelve couples, ordinary rooms, nothing in particular happening. Shown plainly, because that’s the whole argument.
This is collaborative, not directed
I’m not arriving with a shot list and posing you into it. We plan your session together — your home, your routine, the things you actually do. My job is to notice what’s already there and photograph it well.
Which means the range is yours to set. Every session covers the full spread: images you’d post on main, images you’d send to one person, and fully nude work. Where you stop is your call — decided with me before we shoot, and again on the day if you change your mind.
Faces are shown. That’s the one thing I can’t flex on — a collection about love that hides who’s in it isn’t the collection. But you choose how you’re named, and you have veto over every image.
The moments
Here’s the kind of thing I’m after. It can be anywhere — inside or out — as long as it’s somewhere the two of you can actually be alone. It’s a starting point, not a menu: the best sessions come from something only you two do.
Morning
- Coffee in bed, before either of you has said anything
- Waking up tangled, nowhere to be
- Getting ready at one sink, in each other’s way
- Making the bed together, badly
Around the house
- Cooking dinner in a kitchen too small for two
- Dancing to something embarrassing while the pasta boils
- Reading in the same room, not talking
- The nap that wasn’t planned
- A bath that went cold because neither of you moved
- The shower
- A haircut at the kitchen sink
Outside, somewhere private
- The backyard after dark, no one home
- A hot tub under the stars
- A private pool, nobody watching
- A tent miles from the nearest anyone
- Golden hour on a roof that’s just yours
Winding down
- Netflix, one of you already asleep
- The last drink on the couch
- A fire going, no reason to leave the room
- Last one up, turning off the lights
Through the year
The collection becomes a calendar — twelve couples, twelve months — so some of these are tied to a time of year. A holiday, a season, a reason to stay in. If one of them is yours, say so.
- January — New Year’s morning, the whole day in bed
- February — Valentine’s, breakfast neither of you finishes
- March — the first warm light, windows finally open
- April — a rainy afternoon, nowhere to be
- May — Sunday, the coffee going cold
- June — Pride weekend, home before the noise
- July — the backyard after dark, just the two of you
- August — the hottest night, fan on, covers off
- September — the first cold morning, back under the blankets
- October — Halloween, half a costume
- November — Thanksgiving for two, the kitchen all steam
- December — Christmas morning by the tree
If none of these are you, good. Tell me what is.
The plain terms
It costs you nothing
No session fee, no print purchase, no catch. I’m not upselling you at the end.
You get your photographs
Every couple I shoot receives their images and a release to use them however you like — print them, post them, keep them.
In return, I need commercial rights to the work
If you’re one of the twelve, your photographs may be sold as prints, published as a calendar, or used as the basis for artwork on other products. That means a stranger could buy a photograph of you and hang it in their home. I’d rather you sit with that sentence now than be surprised by it later.
You are never in a photograph you didn’t approve
You see everything, and you have veto — before selection, and before anything goes public.
You choose how you’re identified
Full names, first names, initials, a name you make up, or nothing at all. It’s your call, and it doesn’t affect whether you’re selected.
If you’re not one of the twelve, nothing of yours is sold
I’ll be photographing more couples than I can use. If your session doesn’t make the collection, the images are still yours to keep — and they stay out of the collection, off the products, and off the walls.
Who I’m looking for
Gay male couples. Every body type — this collection is uninteresting if everyone in it looks the same, and that’s not what walking around Salt Lake looks like anyway.
No requirement on how long you’ve been together, how out you are, or whether you’ve ever been photographed before. Most people haven’t. That’s usually a help.
Sessions happen in Utah. If you’re outside the state and want to travel here, I’d still like to hear from you.
Timing
Sessions run over the coming year, a small number each month, with the collection releasing next year. There’s no application deadline — I’ll keep meeting couples until the calendar is full and the collection is right.
Putting your name in is not a commitment. It starts a conversation.
Put your name in
Leave your email and I’ll take you straight to a short form to tell me about the two of you — your everyday, what you’re comfortable with, the moment you’d want to shoot. There’s no wrong answer, and I read every one myself. You’ll get a link to book from there.
Here for a session, not the collection?
Love, Life is one specific project — twelve couples, shot over a year, made to be shown. If what you actually want is a session of your own, that’s boudoir, and I shoot it all year on your terms. Same care, same judgment-free room — but those images belong to you and are sold to no one.
Subscribe to the Blog
Not posing, but want to follow the project and know when Love, Life comes out?
What an intimate session is actually like
If you’re weighing this — whether it’s the collection or a session of your own — here’s how I run the room.
