About Chris.

At the end of 2022, I began looking back at all the photos I had taken.

Turns out, I took a lot of nature photos. I clung especially tight to the Arkansas River and various Arkansas State Parks.

In hindsight, I realize I was using hiding in the natural beauty of Arkansas.

I was hiding from Arkansans, and what I perceive as their penchant for visiting immeasurable cruelty on each other, and then relishing what they’ve done.

I simply don’t trust that my fellow Arkansans want a liberal democracy – they act like fascists creating an authoritarian state.

If I had my ‘druthers, as the saying goes, I’d stay in hiding.

But, as D’Angelo Lovell Williams explains in the New York Times on January 8, 2023, silence equals death.

And I don’t think 2023 is going to let me hide, anyway. If I merely mistrust my fellow Arkansans political leanings, I am convinced Arkansans are not content just letting Queer folks be.

The Arkansas legislature and our MAGAt governor-elect, fully lubed by the engineering of a gerrymandered supermajority, have begun whipping themselves into a frothy frenzy, priming their pumps to explode a volcanic load of hate on Queer people, Black people, and women.

So what does that mean for my photography in 2023?

I don’t rightly know.

Chase Strangio once wrote about the importance of preserving Queer stories and histories. And elsewhere, Chase wrote that “[t]here is nothing more valuable than weaving our histories of resilience and love through the narratives of our present and future.”

I like the way that sounds.

Something special is happening in the Arkansas Queer community.

There is a story here in Arkansas worth telling; a history worth weaving.

I want to help you navigate this website. It isn’t a photography website so much as the story of the life I’m living.

• 2022 Portfolio – I am curating my 2022 images into small collections on my portfolio pages.

• Back in June 2022, inspired by Val Kilmer’s autobiographical movie, I started carrying my camera everywhere, creating monthly galleries of the live I am living

• You can see my Photo Gallery of the Arkansas River here. It is a living collection, and I’m adding new images monthly.

• Each week on my blog, I publish a curation of the week’s photographs, centering on a theme. Subscribe to the blog by giving your email below.

• If you are a Drag Queen in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, or Texas, I’m offering free studio photo shoots in my Little Rock, Arkansas, studio.

• Follow my Daily Project – I take one photo with my Sony RX100 mkIII and write a haiku pertaining to life in Akransas on Instagram at Arkansas Today.

• Follow my photo sketchbook on Instagram at Blue Bus Photos, where I share images and text – sketches, really – exploring the components of a broader project I am working on.

Hope that your 2023 is everything you wish for your enemies!

Peace,