Shooting Sexy!

I’ve always considered myself a serious photojournalist. I’ve covered hard news and social issues, documenting the history of Utah through grief and pain, joy and wonder. Throughout my career as a documentary photographer I never thought I would ever have to ask a subject, “Do you want to take your shirt off?” But now I can say I have. Weeks ago I was assigned to shoot a series of “SEXY” portraits for the Tribune’s In Utah This Week tabloid and found myself mumbling those words. Luckily for my marriage, the subject in front of my camera was a guy. I can only imagine what my colleague Francisco Kjolseth thought when he was asked to photograph a nude man covering his manhood with only a copy of IN (the left cover in the series above). I wasn’t about to blog about my day spent photographing “hot” guys. There were many hilarious moments and it would have been a great post. Especially considering how hard my co-workers laughed as I recounted my pathetic attempts to make guys look sexy. But I knew I had to blog about IN when I got a call to remove an image from a rotating display of photographs in the Tribune newsroom. More than one Tribune employee had found Rick Egan’s photograph (above) of the Salt Lake City burlesque group Slippery Kittens deeply offensive. The image was immediately removed from display. Being no stranger myself to controversial photographs in the hallways of the paper, I find this fascinating. At the Tribune we seem to take pride in the fact that IN is edgy and pushes buttons. And yet the photograph pushed our own buttons to the point that it was removed from display. Fascinating.