GAYLETTER

Let me get this off my chest right away, full disclosure, I am absolutely in LOVE with Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, the artist. Plain and simple, V makes me nervous.

Now I’ve shot Beyonce, Sinead O’connor and even Chad from Nickelback 😉 and they don’t make me half as nervous as V does. The night of our shoot, I took a deep breath and went into V’s dressing room at Joe’s Pub, and patiently waited while Tom and Abi interviewed V while V ironed V’s Alexander Wang pants (I operated the camera).

The night before I had a vision —V putting her lipstick on in the make-up mirror, that would be my shot. So after a few warm up frames of V ironing I went for it. I asked Vivian to please consider V’s self in the mirror and touch up those gorgeous lips. Mx. Bond obliged and click click click, I took V’s portrait. Then V paused, re-applied one last time, and I snapped a frame. We both felt it, we were clearly done with the lipstick portion of the photoshoot. Then V asked, “What shall I do?” then instinctively leaned over and smelled the orchids before I could answer. I focused on the stunning image in the mirror for what felt like a millenia before I took the picture, I knew it was the finale.

Justin’s show: Mx. America is running until March 30th at Joe’s Pub.