Fehl Cannon favours photographing on location in Tennessee on a 100 acre Wilderness Land Trust and in the alleys, basements and bedrooms of Washington. His models are university students, athletes, dancers, waiters, guys met casually in the gym and friends. They want to make a little extra money for beer and dope, or simply to get some photographic record of their bodies while they are in their prime. They express a need to experience themselves via someone else's perception, as objects of the other's desire and admiration.
Above all, Fehl Cannon's work is about permission -- permission to look -- permission to admire -- permission to desire. The men he photographs share with him a curiosity about their bodies. Together they improvise with objects that he digs or dreams up. They too, bring their own ideas -- tattoos, piercings, fetish wear and boyfriends.
Cannon's photos use props as symbols -- often chosen for their erotic associations, serving as totems of masculinity, emblems of private and communal fantasies. These symbols can be as direct as a leather codpiece or an erect penis, or as obscure as a dense shadow or a corroded sheet of copper. In his work, Fehl Cannon captures masculine energy, freezing it for our view in a split-second flash.
Fehl Cannon's work has also appeared in The Advocate, The Washington Blade, Uniforms and a book of poetry by Oscar Hernandez.
