Photographers - Part 31

John Arsenault 

John Arsenault was born in 1971 and raised in a small town in Massachusetts.  In 1997 he moved to New York City to pursue a degree in photography at the School of Visual Arts.  He photographs all kinds of subjects, but we will concentrate on his self-portraits.  Above is The Weather Outside is Frightful, Brooklyn, NY, 2000.

Arsenault is gay and out.  Above is What I Got For a Buck, New York, 2003.  That's Arsenault's hand in the foreground.

Many of his self-portraits were taken in Provincetown, Massachusetts.  This is Good Luck, 2008.

Arsenault describes his work as a visual diary.  This is Your Judging is Not Fun, Provincetown, 2008

This is Forget, Provincetown, 2008.  A related photo showing him sitting in the nook behind the curtain is called Forget About My Tainted Heart, It's You I Keep My Legs Apart For.

This is Crawl, Provincetown, 2009.

Arsenault also took self-portraits in Rosendale, New York.  This is Hydrangea, 2008.

This is The Sweetest Gift, Rosendale, 2008.

The subtle self-portrait above is A Wolf at the Doorway, Palm Springs, California, 2009.

In 2010, Arsenault moved to Los Angeles, where he now lives.  For a year and a half Arsenault worked at Eagle LA, a gay leather bar, as what he calls a barmaid.  He kept taking photos there as part of his visual diary.  This is not a self-portrait, but it appears to have been taken in the employees' locker room.  It's called Turned Off, 2012.

The Advocate asked Arsenault what catches his eye.  He replied: "What catches my eye is unlimited to what I can think of. The smell of a man, a sexy high heel, sunlight, the color of leaves during fall, gold necklaces, tattoos, the ocean, a long braid, flowers, the light streaming across the mountains in Palm Springs, creative people, weathered faces, color, a smile, thick hairy legs on a man, diamonds, water drops on a window after a storm, my friends, sunsets, men in dresses, reflections, lace, hands, fresh cut grass, honesty in a lover's eyes."