Dese'Rae L. Stage

sami.the.great in LA | Los Angeles Concert Photography

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:49:22 +0000

I recently took a sabbatical in California. While I was there, I joined up briefly with sami.the.great‘s Hear Me Now tour in support of her recently released self-titled album (get it on iTunes). Made some pictures at the show at M Bar in LA, then hung out with the band at their hotel afterward. Caught some really nice quiet moments and a great candid video of Sami covering the Righteous Brothers’s “Unchained Melody,” which you can check out at the end of the post.

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Rasputina Plays the Knitting Factory Brooklyn | New York City Concert Photography

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:35:09 +0000

Rasputina has been one of my favorite bands since I was fifteen years old. In the last decade, I’ve seen their lineup change numerous times, seen them play countless venues in a number of cities in a handful of states. Back in 2009, I photographed one of their shows at this very same venue, and my images ended up being used as the artwork for their live CD, The Pregnant Concert. In short, I’ve got a bit of history with this band. I love and support their work.

I kind of fell out of the music photography scene because, as cool as it made me feel to photograph and interview my heroes, I didn’t feel like that kind of work was doing much true good for the world. I heard about this show at the last minute and knew I’d be leaving the city soon, so I sent an email out into the abyss in the hope that Melora would be down with me photographing one last time before I left the big city. She was. Here are the images.

A Quickie

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:45:43 +0000

Hey, remember that project I’ve been working on that I talk a lot about? Well, at the end of January, I started working with videographer/photographer Aleksandar Cosic, and he caught some candids of my Live Through This shoot with Krista Andrews. Little known fact: Krista and I grew up within mere miles of each other, went to the same elementary and middle schools (even shared at least one teacher!), and never met until our lives converged in NYC. Crazy. I’ll post Krista’s story soon enough. Until then, check out Aleksandar’s shots.

I promise I’ll try and get around to updating you guys on the reasons behind my radio silence ASAP. In the meantime, I’ll drop a bomb on you: I’m moving to Memphis at the end of next month. Time for a fresh start.

Major Unexpected Life Changes

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:44:13 +0000

Turns out, I got some major curve balls thrown at me back in the beginning of February that I’ve been dealing with. My productivity has ground to a halt and I’ve been doing my best just to stay afloat. I’ll be back as soon as I can to tell you all about it and return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

No related posts.

Live Through This: So Far

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:46:55 +0000

Over the last several weeks, I’ve put a lot of effort and focus into Live Through This, a project about suicide attempt survivors (which I wrote about here). I’ve been posting one image a week, along with excerpts of their corresponding stories.

The goal of the project is to bring awareness to the public. This is a human issue, not a gay issue or an adolescent issue or a Native American issue or a military issue, and it needs attention. One big problem with suicide is that people are afraid to talk about it. Often, when someone fears a friend or loved one is suicidal, they either think it’s a plea for attention or they’re afraid that asking the person if they’re suicidal will plant the idea in that person’s mind. Neither of these things is true. All suicide crises should be taken seriously. Everyone, without exception, should have the courage to ask and listen without judgment. A lot of lives would get saved that way.

There are a lot of developments going down behind the scenes. I’m working with some old friends from academia to marry the art of this project with some real, hard science. I’m starting to plan travel for the people who have contacted me about participating all over the country. There’s even a Live Through This tattoo out in the world already! Take a look at the first four faces of LTT below, and maybe shoot on over to the website and read their stories.

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If you would like to help fund the project, click here.

If you would like to participate in Live Through This, please contact me.

If you think you know someone who might be interested, please pass along the link to this entry or to the LTT website.

If you’re sympathetic to the cause, please tweet about it, or post a link on Facebook or G+, and ask your friends to re-post it. The more eyes that see this, the better.

If you want to follow LTT on Twitter, you can do that here.

If you want to buy a LTT logo t-shirt, you can do that here. We have 1 small, 2 large, and 1 XL left in this batch.

A Few Quick Updates

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:42:57 +0000

Hi! I’m slacking on the blog right now, but it’s alright because I’m kicking ass elsewhere. Here’s how:

1. I did my sixth shoot for Live Through This yesterday. I’ve also [finally] posted the first two portraits and their associated stories on the website. Please, please go check it out. This project is my main priority right now. I’ve got shoots scheduled through the beginning of February.

2. I have an appointment with Vinny to finish up my Queen of Hearts tattoo this evening. I’ll be sure to post a photo at some point.

3. Even though I acquired another cold (the second in a month), I let Adam hammer away at my back on Tuesday. Of course you want to see how things are looking. Would I let you down?

Have a good weekend,

Happy New Year, and Progress on the Back Piece

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:36:11 +0000

Hello! Happy New Year!

I’m not really huge on the new beginnings chatter, but I made some resolutions that I’m hoping are realistic for my personal, business, and artistic… life? Lives? I know for a fact that figuring out how to STOP BITING MY NAILS will be the hardest. Totally harder than fully supporting myself on my art, right? Wish me luck.

Moving on to the actual topic of this post: the full back tattoo in progress. When last we spoke of it, my back didn’t actually look like a messy, unfinished sketch. Now it does! Woo! I actually showed up much earlier than expected for my appointment with Adam and got to spend some time watching him sketch and re-sketch to his heart’s content.

Below is a series of images that break our session down into bite-sized pieces:
1. The man, the myth, the unabiding love for Texas
2. Discarded sketches
3. A rough sketch of our lady with proper positioning (and titties!)
4. R.I.P. explodingdog tattoos
5. My back after Adam had at it with a Sharpie or two
6. And after he had at it with needle and ink

I’m due for another session on Tuesday. Can’t wait to don the backwards hoodie and let the twins fly free again. I’ll keep you posted.

My mom is most definitely pissed,

Happy Holidays!

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:25:39 +0000

We’re running off to our homeland (Florida! Sun! Mickey!) for the holidays, so I’ll be out of commission likely until the new year. For my last public bloggin’ act of 2011, I want to share a bad scan of our very first holiday card as an official fambly.

We spent an entire day with a mini studio set up in our equally mini-sized apartment and just played around. We had a great time, and I think it comes through. This has been one of the best years of my life, and I can’t wait to see what next year brings.

Happy holidays.

So gay it hurts,

Jesus, You’re Getting Another Tattoo?

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:35:44 +0000

See that picture down there? That’s Mr. Adam Hays and an outline he traced off my back. You can see the midline, my asymmetrical explodingdog tattoos, my butt crack, and what looks like a chunk bitten off the right side, where my arm would be. That last bit actually represents the overlap of my sleeve tattoo into my shoulder area. You can also see that I have a damn big back.

I guess what you’re wondering is, well, why Adam traced my big back. The answer is that he’ll be starting work on a full back piece (on me, duh) tomorrow afternoon. It will be a custom Day of the Dead tattoo, partially inspired by Sylvia Ji‘s amazing work (which Adam turned me on to) and referential to both some major losses in my life as well as my passion for photography. That’s all I’m sharing for now. We’ll also be covering up those explodingdog tattoos, I’m sad to say. As much as I love them, they’re a pretty good example of bad placement, a faux pas on the part of the artist and the [then ignorant] consumer.

People are always asking me about my tattoos, so I figured I’d just write about them here more often. In this particular instance, if I’m diligent enough, you’ll get to see the process of a custom tattoo from conception to execution. I’ll share the conception part later, when the content of the piece is no longer shrouded in mystery.

All of that said, you’ll probably see a lot more here about tattoos for another reason: I was recently awarded the awesome job of social media management for Red Rocket Tattoo‘s Manhattan shop. I’ve always wanted to spend more time watching the magic being made, and this will give me ample opportunity to do so. I’ll be there a couple times a month clicking away with my camera, so be sure to “like” their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter/Instagram (@redrockettattoo) to see what transpires.

My mom’s gonna be pissed,

Getting Gay Married: The Name Issue

Dese'Rae L. Stage — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:21:09 +0000

KK and I thought about marriage for quite awhile before we got engaged and one of the first questions that popped up for us was: what should we do about the name issue?

Since there isn’t a wealth of documentation on gay marriage and family building from a gay perspective and we are trailblazers of a sort, the answer didn’t come quickly. We spent a lot of time considering it, but a firm decision was always put off because we didn’t plan on marryin’ until May 2012. There was time to be had! Then, when the Marriage Equality Act was passed on June 24th, we realized that it was probably time to buck up and do some serious thinking. Soon after, we found out that we’d be married at the Pop Up Chapel on July 30th. That was about the time I went into full on panic mode.

The way we saw it, we had four options: we could keep our names just as they were; one of us could take the other’s name; we could hyphenate; or, and this option was our favorite from the get-go, we could mash our names together to symbolize the creation of a new family. We immediately wrote off hyphenation. While it does seem to be the stereotypical go-to naming convention for the rest of our gay brethren (and a lot of Hispanics, too), it’s clunky and pretty impractical for future generations. We didn’t want to keep our given names because solidarity was important to us, and God forbid one of us was hospitalized while traveling in a state that doesn’t recognize our marriage. We regularly find ourselves in both Florida and North Carolina, for instance, so we’d at least be a little bit ahead of the game if something happened and we shared a name.

In the end, it came down to either my name or the mash-up (Stage + Marks = Starks). I’d decided that I would continue to run my photography business under my given name, and for simplicity’s sake, Katie offered to become Katie Stage. This gave me the jibblies for a couple of reasons. First, a lot of people have some really idiotic ideas about lesbians, our “lifestyle,” and gender roles. I had approximately zero interest in people assuming me to be “the man” or even the dominant player in our relationship simply because Katie took my name. Second, my relationship with my name has always been tumultuous; so much so that I seriously considered changing it to Kennedy, my mother’s maiden name, for many years. I never did because I waited too long, and it seemed silly to start my professional life over with a whole new name after I’d already accomplished all that I had. At this point, because I have a registered DBA for the business, I can function under that name and a legal married name.

The answer seemed obvious, but the problem was that Katie genuinely loved and wanted to take my last name. I think, for her, the whole ordeal was a bit simpler because she grew up with a very heteronormative life plan. In other words, she wasn’t expecting to marry a lady, and always assumed she’d take a man’s last name. Taking my name was less of a leap than the very fact of our relationship and, well, she obviously crossed that bridge awhile ago.

We found ourselves at a stalemate, and with a limited amount of time to make a decision, so we did what any other reasonable pair of people would do in this position. We asked our parents. Katie’s mom voted for hyphenation; my mom said she’d support whatever decision we made. We asked Facebook and Twitter. Pretty even votes for Stage and Starks in both venues. We asked celebrities on Twitter. Neil Gaiman voted for Stagemarks; Auntie Cher chose not to weigh in. We flipped coins. Stage dominated Starks there. We threw a party and had people put suggestions into a hat. Scissorfist was, surprisingly, never an option. I cried. A few times. Katie consoled me.

When it came down to it, I was the one with the qualms, so I was the one with the weight of the decision. I knew that Katie would be happy with either name. I also knew that it was one of the biggest decisions I’d ever have to make, and I didn’t want to make the wrong one. No matter how many ways I tried to spin it, I couldn’t make myself comfortable with Katie taking my name. Plus, I really liked the idea of creating something entirely new and entirely our own. That’s one of the many joys of non-traditional families: you’re not really held to historical mores and some people are inevitably judging you anyway, so you may as well do what’s going to make you the happiest.

Starks is egalitarian and pays homage to both of us. To me, that’s as perfect as you can get, and so that’s what went on the marriage license.

At least my initials didn’t change,