“Self portrait with Louie”

“I first started documenting my intimate moments with a Polaroid Spectra camera. It was a way for me to document my sexual escapades. For me it was creating and keeping a memento from an otherwise lonely sexual experience that usually wasn’t satisfying at all. I was having a lot of sex, meeting guys online through sites like Manhunt and Adam4Adam. Of course not every man that I met was okay with me taking instant photos of our sexual encounter. If I had a photo of every encounter I would have a shit ton of images!
Eventually I became an escort and as the money rolled in I was able to buy and upgrade my equipment and buy more and more Polaroid film. Around this time I also realized that I truly had a passion for photography and documenting my intimate moments – I then started shooting on film with my Pentax 67II, the camera that I hadn’t touched since college, and that is how the “Men“ series came about. Since I was shooting on medium format film it was a little more work, and required more patience from the subject. With that in mind I began photographing friends as well as lovers and random online hookups. This is a project that I intend to keep working on, even as I start new projects.”

“Kael”

“I had never met Kael in person before I photographed him. I knew of him through mutual friends. Something about him intrigued me; I think it was that he looked so sprightly. I eventually met him at his apartment; he was full of energy and had a great smile and laugh, it was refreshing. He was very comfortable in his own skin and didn’t have an issue-posing nude for me. Kael has an amazing body – and a great ass! He had shown me these really sexy photos of himself that were taken on a trip to Iceland. The ones that stood out were close ups of his ass half submerged in water- the water lapping at the roundness of his supple bubble butt. It was difficult for me to not get an erection as I photographed him that day. I took his portrait in his roommate Jesse’s bedroom, I liked how the windows were covered in newsprint so I made him a paper hat to wear, and it just felt right. Kael was fun to work with. His confidence in himself really turned me on!”

“Kevin”

“I took this portrait of Kevin in my old apartment. We’ve known each other for years. He is from Minneapolis originally but has been living in Sweden for the past 10 years or so. We hang out when he comes back in the summers to visit. This is a really quiet portrait of Kevin, which, if you got to know him, you would understand be a contradiction to the chaos that he tends to create and surround himself with. I’ve gotten into some of the craziest situations with him. One summer he and I and a group of friends went to a small town bar for karaoke. We all stood out like a sore thumb, the attention was fun for a minute, until some random guy sucker punched me in the face, knocking me to the ground. Fortunately the friends that we were there with were big, strong, and muscular and took care of business. They roughed up the guy and kicked him out. Later in the evening as the group of us were walking home the assailant from earlier pulled up in his corny Chevy Lumina minivan wanting to start something, again. But, before he could get out of the car Kevin to a big rock from the street and smashed out a couple of the windows on the minivan, then we all ran home as fast as we could. More alcohol flowed and we taped up my busted eye. Needless to say, that’s just one incident that I found myself in with Kevin; we share a connection that is special or toxic, depending on how you look at it.”

“Aaron”

“Aaron is this guy that I met online, from Manhunt or Adam4Adam. I was bored and horny and invited him over. It was really kind of embarrassing at the time but I was fucking him doggy style and he reached forward to grab a pillow and was like, “ what’s this?” under the pillow there was a dog turd. LOL. My dog must have taken a shit on my bed earlier and I hadn’t noticed it. So I grabbed the shit and threw it in the toilet and came back and started fucking him again. We fucked hard, so hard that the bed was creaking and making noise- it was around one in the morning when my neighbor that lived below me banged on her ceiling we were making too much noise.
I took this portrait after Aaron and I were done fucking. He mentioned to me that he was more sexually uninhibited now that he had lost weight. He used to be more overweight. The armband that he is wearing is cool, not sure if it signifies something in the leather community or not.”

Benjamin Fredrickson studied at Parsons Paris School of Art and Design, he received his BFA in Photography from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. His work has been published in Butt Magazine and Brief Magazine and currently live and works in Minneapolis. The complete “Men”-series and more on his website and his “Polaroids Blog“.