“I am interested in creating a sense of fantasy in which the viewer can be seduced by the romanticism of the landscape yet feel a tension from the possibility of this unknown, a sublime place where one can loose themselves both physically and psychologically.”
“The landscapes in which these men make sexual connections in are not dark and terrible places but tranquil and beautiful,” he has said.
States spent two years traveling around the country, from the Pacific Northwest to locations back east, capturing these images and exploring the important role that setting plays in these brief encounters. Instead, his photos are a celebration of a part of gay culture that he says has been killed by the Internet, and “the sexual intimacy, however fleeting, that happens there.” For Philadelphia-based photographer Chad Sates, whose work we spotted thanks to Feature Shoot, taking snapshots of guys cruising for anonymous sex in state parks wasn’t about passing judgement or navel gazing.
