NYC-based photographer Josh McNey, who has shot countless photos for XLR8R, including last year’s Night Slugs feature, and this issue’s piece on ballroom house, will unveil his latest show, Protect From Light, at Casa de Costa, a new studio/arts salon in New York, on April 29. McNey’s non-musical work examines a number of facets of the American landscape, its people, and its quieter moments in between. Still-lifes, documents of college wrestling matches, and portraits of rodeo cowboys all make appearances in McNey’s greater explorations of nature and masculinity.

Of his solo show, McNey says, “Being afraid of my sexuality made me afraid to stare. I didn’t want to be ‘caught’ looking at guys. I think this teenage strategy of visual chastity made it all the more urgent that I find a way to legitimize staring. Photography became for me both an apparatus and a metaphor for coming out as a gay man. Showing the work is one more step in that direction.”

See more of McNey’s work on view here, and download the most recent edition of XLR8R to see his spreads from a New Jersey house ball.