He told me, within thirty seconds, that he had a girlfriend... with Joey M

LIAM C.
Mar 7, 2016
2 min read

As part of an endeavour to try out a new photographing technique using only available light indoors at night, I put out a call in London. I ended up meeting a few guys to test on, and Joey M was my second.

In order to get that more natural Elska feel, I insisted on shooting at his place, even though he lived way on the other side of London and I have a determined pledge not to use public transport here at home. That meant that getting to his place involved a 27 mile bike ride. No matter, it's good exercise, and surprisingly, I arrived at his place not completely out of breath.

It took him a while to answer the door - specifically three bell rings and a knock - and then finally he arrived and invited me in, offering a water immediately since he knew I'd been cycling. Then he told me, still within thirty seconds of meeting, that he had a girlfriend. I always find it quite amusing when straight boys so quickly find a way to insert their straightness into conversation. The same was true of Kolbeinn H from Issue (03) Reykjavík and Marko K from Issue (01) Lviv. It's as if they're afraid I might try to molest them or something!

The actual reason that Joey brought her up was to explain why we couldn't shoot in his bedroom. Instead we shot in his flatmate Marcos's room, which is what you see in these pictures. Still, I felt like he was kind of nervous. Maybe I should have lied and said I had a girlfriend too. Perhaps I'll keep that in the tactics bag for another shoot.