Radical Sex Photography with Mark Chester

Dec 21, 2010

Recently, we caught up with photographer, Mark Chester.  He shared a few thoughts with us.

http://markichester.com

What is radical sex photography?

First, I don’t do radical “sex photography.”  I do photography of “radical sex.”  Radical sex is the term that I use to describe my sexuality.  Others may call what they do leather, leathersex, rough sex or BDSM, but none of those terms accurately describe the depth and breadth of my sexual interests.

Over 30 years, the photo work I’ve done has been a kind of diary of my life in San Francisco, as a gay man into radical sex.  The work has taken many different forms.  I started out by documenting my sex scenes.  That morphed into creating iconographic statements and sexual landscapes.  And finally that transformed into creating sexual portraits.

You’ve chronicled SOMA for close to 30 years – how have things changed?

Things are a lot more expensive and a lot less fun.   Over time, we change as time changes.  But I think it’s hard for younger people to understand how much things have changed.  The men were part of the great wave of emigrations to San Francisco.  They believed in gay sex and the fact that gay sex and gay liberation saved their lives.  The possibilities were endless and people were living their fantasies.  More than just individuals died.  An entire way of life died  It would have transformed into something else anyway at some point, but it was the suddenness and brutality with which that way of life died that is shocking.  I have survived (as of today anyway) but after an experience like that, you are changed forever.

Some call your work edgy.  Have you ever toned it down to be mainstream or kicked it up a notch in order to be more outrageous?

My work has been called every name in the book and some things that you wouldn’t find printed in a book. <g>  I don’t pay any attention to what some call me or the work that I do.  I’ve tried to live my life as honestly and openly as I can.  And that goes for my photo work as well.  I’m interested in trying to share the stories of my life because I believe that the histories that they tell speak volumes about who we are and who we were.

Who are your artistic muses or gurus?

I love the paintings of George Catlin, who documented Indian tribes and rituals in the mid 1980s, including the Mandan Indians’ O-Kee-Pa Ceremony (which most know from a movie called, “A Man Called Horse.”)  I love the mysterious black and white photographs of the female nude by British photographer Bill Brandt and the intensely straight forward documents of the German people by photographer August Sander.  And I love the sexual landscapes of George Platt Lynes and the erotic studies of men who are different by George Dureau.

What is your greatest fear?

I know how fragile life is.  I’ve lost valuable work and history in multiple fires and earthquakes.  Everything I have worked for for 30 years could be lost forever in just a matter of seconds and it is something over which I have no control.

What is your favorite kink?

And I only allowed one?   Men.  Boots.  Men in boots.  Men with facial hair.  Men with glasses.  Men with hard dicks.  Men with horned up nipples.  Those are just a few, but if I had to choose just one, it would be Men!

What is your greatest  extravagance?

Over the years, I have given up almost everything so that I could continue documenting my life and my community.  The cost to do that has been tremendous on many levels – economic, emotional, sexual, psychological.  I would definitely call my obsession with creating photographs to be the biggest extravagance of my life.

What was your most intense or edgy shoot?

There have been a few of them.  I’ll give you a couple of examples.  I photographed my ex gay playwright Robert Chesley when he had full blown AIDS and ks lesions.  The sight of him covered with ks lesions was so shocking that I almost couldn’t go on.  Eventually hard dicks became involved so it became as erotic as it was devastating.

I photographed a beautiful friend of mine who had just come out of the hospital after having nearly died from meningitis.  As a complication, blood clots got caught in one of his elbows and by the time they corrected the problem, so much damage had occurred to his right hand that his fingers started to necrotize.  I asked to photograph him a few days before his fingers were to be amputated.  I kept breaking down during the session and having to leave the room to compose myself.

If you had to do something other than photography, what would it be?

Like Bing Crosby who died on the golf course, I plan to die in the photo studio photographing men.

What is coming up for you?

On Oct. 15th, 2010, the Center for Sex and Culture will be hosting a 60th birthday party and benefit for me in my studio.  The 30 year retrospective of my work will still be on display.  The party will benefit a project to raise enough money for me to put out another book of my photo work.  As the Center for Sex and Culture is a 501c3, all donations are tax deductible.

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