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Q: You've explained in Biography how you came to focus on self-imaging. Can you say more about the impulse behind your work?
A: The impulse is multiple. In part it is creative expression, an outlet that lets me combine photography with costume and makeup design with a kind of acting. I like to call it "still life performance art." In part -- like a lot of art -- its purpose is psychological, offering me an opportunity to explore into my own makeup. And in part, the impulse is sexual, since the pictures and this website operate as a kind of controlled exhibitionism.
Q: Where do you get your ideas for the different characters?
A: Often they're generated by some cosmetic or external element. I know I'll want to try on a particular look, like a mohawk haircut, or I'll be interested in the possibilities of a particular kind of costume, like a big skirt. These elements will lead the rest and I'll end up finding the character within them. On other occasions, I'll have a strong sense of wanting to be a particular character and I build the look around that. Either way I end up discovering something, and the results and how people react to them often come out differently from what I thought I was driving at, providing an additional layer of discovery.
Q: Isn't it awfully egotistical to devote an art form, and a website to your own image?
A: Most art contains a strong element of ego. The memoir, the autobiographical novel, "confessional" songs and poems, the self-portrait are all forms where the artist's exposure and examination of layers of self are overt. Artists who specialize in these forms (Frida Khalo, Maya Angelou, Joni Mitchell, Cindy Sherman, Edmund White -- all the ones who spring immediately to mind are either women or gay men) are using the self as a medium, as the means to an artistic end. If the message is worthy so is the medium.
I am indulging in a kind of narcissism, but I hope I'm able to use myself as a medium to reach beyond myself. In practice, developing these images requires me to "get out of myself" as much as it does to focus in on myself.
Q: You seem to get a charge out of exposing bare flesh. Do you think you've got a great body or something?
A: No. I think I have a decidedly average body. I'm a pasty white guy with glasses, a forty -something who has fended off middle-age spread but who still hasn't lost his baby fat. But that's a much improved opinion over what I used to think of myself. Part of what I enjoy doing in these photos is using the elements of lighting, pose, costuming to show off my average assets to their best advantage and attaining, at least in the picture, something closer to my fantasy of myself. Sort of like a glamour makeover. And sometimes the results aren't entirely flattering, but they interest me anyway.
I can actually be painfully shy about exposing my body in public, and in settings where men are likely to take off their shirts, I'm usually the last one to strip down. Swimming trunks are my nemesis since they act to raise and emphasize my love-handles in much the same way that a wonder-bra pushes up a woman's breasts. But being able to control the image provides a kind of antidote and that shyness is transformed into exhibitionism.
I'm particularly fixated on chests, both my own and other men's; consequently most of my characters feature the chest exposed. Having been particularly scrawny in this department for most of my life, I get a real bang out of making the most of the modest assets I've acquired through all those bench presses.
I'm all for nudity, both as an expression of sexuality, as a statement of the natural body and its freedom, and for all the iconographic significance it can have for everything from freedom to vulnerability to purity to debauchery. I take a lot of frontally nude photos of myself. For this website however, I've chosen not to include them, or to do a bit of "fig leaf" doctoring. I made this decision because I'd like to appeal to the widest possible audience, and because I think that exposing the genitals can be a form of sexual engagement that should be consensual -- and I prefer not to junk up the site with a lot of warnings.
Q: Do you ever perform, or go out in public in these guises.
A: Not yet. By calling it "still life performance art" I'm stating that the still images are the ultimate goal of my work. But I sometimes wonder if the next step isn't to bring it alive somehow. As to going out in public, I certainly fantasize about it, and feel a kind of envy for leather fetishists and others who parade their fantasies in the open. But so far this website is the most public manifestation of my impulse to assume myriad forms.
Q: How do you take these pictures?
A: I generally set up a room in the house to function as a studio, using a rudimentary lighting system and plain backdrop. (Because this involves converting a room to a temporary purpose, it works best for me to plan a series of characters and shoot for a week of sessions, rather than to create characters as the spirit moves me). I mount my camera, a 35mm SLR with auto exposure and manual focus, on a tripod. To check framing and focus. I use a "stand-in," -- a telescoping music stand with a mask positioned where my face would be. A mirror helps me determine the effects of lighting and pose.
The self timer on the camera gives me about 10 seconds to get from the camera and into my pose, but I'm never sure of the precise moment when the shutter will snap. Sometimes I try to be in motion for the click. More often I want to be "hitting the pose" -- reaching the point of highest energy when the film is exposed. This is tricky, and spontaneity is a real problem.
Even with all these preparations, I make lots of mistakes (like forgetting to take my glasses off or knocking the camera out of position and continuing to shoot) and because I can't actually see what I look like, I'm often unsure if I really "got it." Consequently, I end up shooting a lot of film to arrive at a few images that I'm really satisfied with .
Q: Do you retouch or distort the photos in any way?
A: I do sometimes doctor the photos in Adobe Photo Deluxe. Most often this is to adjust contrast and hue, sometimes for a more dramatic effect. I do occasional cleanups or adjustments of photographic imperfections. On a few of the images I've posted, I have used special effects to obscure the fullness of my nudity. On the "medallions," ( the circular images on the "Commentary" pages) I've used some fisheye effects to give the headings extra punch.
I have not, however, doctored the photos to distort the proportions of my body or to obscure any physical "imperfections." Having done my utmost in most cases to use lighting, pose and costume to flatter myself, I like to leave the results as they are, even though it would be easy to make it look like I've got a 46 inch chest over a 28 inch waist.
Q: Where do you get your costumes and props?
A: I make most of the adornments for these characters myself, or I assemble them from various items I've inherited, acquired, and scavenged at thrift shops, hardware stores, and fabric clearance tables. Two essential items are secondhand drapes (a terrific source of large volumes of fancy looking fabric at a very cheap price) and a modeling compound made of flour, salt, and water. The gathering and crafting are aspects of the process that makes developing the images very satisfying for me; I don't think going to a costume shop and renting an outfit would be nearly as fulfilling. I have a strong sense of assembling the character from the ground up. Sometimes I sketch out a character in detail in advance; other times it will just manifest itself organically. Part of the fun is in leaving the process open for improvisation: Occasionally I have created a character impromptu from materials I've had on hand, or found the perfect item for realizing a character shortly before I was about to image it.
Q: When you're not being the Chameleon, who are you?
A: I think of myself as a pretty low-profile, vanilla sort of person. I confess that the words "geeky" and "nerdy" have been used to describe me. I was born in 1957, live in suburban Washington, D.C. with the lover I met in 1985 (See Chameleon's Consort) and our two mutts. I have a full-time job in arts administration, so for most of my waking life I'm supporting other artists in achieving their vision.
And this is what I look like when I'm caught without my makeup:
Photo: Nicole Bauman
Q: Would you use yourself if you weren't so good-looking? A: What kind of question is that? Use what you got, right?
If you got it goin' on, use it.--Renee Cox
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