How did Dennis Noonan-Sloan end up being a photographer and a photographer’s model?
It’s not a straightforward story. He had a mid-life crisis and started playing rugby at the age of 45. He had been in the Navy when he was young, but had held mostly office jobs since then. “I was getting fairly doughy, well on my way to a dad bod,” he tells Wander+Lust. “When I started playing rugby, I went from 200 pounds in August 2005 to about 170 in May 2006. It was a lot of running. I became interested in working out, taking care of my body.”
Like many gay men, Noonan-Sloan had a bad relationship with his body and didn’t think he was very attractive. But by 2009, he felt confident enough to hire a photographer to do a photoshoot with him, starting with clothed pictures, followed by nude ones. “It was very empowering. A friend of mine who is a photographer heard me talk about this—we actually met at a naked yoga class—and asked me if I would pose for him. I did, and it kind of went from there.”
After moving to Virginia Beach from Massachusetts, he started taking pictures of rugby, and playing less. He caught the shutterbug. “I was tired of being the model. I wanted to create art,” he says.
Having been a model before you started taking pictures, how do you think that experience affects how you practice photography?
I definitely am cognizant of the vulnerability of it. There are a lot of people, myself included, who like the idea of being naked. I vividly remember that very first photo shoot I did that I paid for. I remember the moment where I had on just my briefs, and then I was taking them off. I’d done a lot of nudist things my entire adult life, but I remember feeling very vulnerable then. The photographer was very sweet, very patient. I remember thinking, that’s the way I want to be. I want to be respectful. So I bring an empathy behind the lens—I understand what the person in front of the lens is going through. I also know that it’s physically demanding, depending on the poses you’re doing, if it’s cold outside, if you’re asked to climb a rock or something. So when I think about what would make a great shot, I think about what pose would make a great shot, then I think of what angle of that pose is going to make a good shot.
You mentioned being nervous being photographed naked. You’re a mature guy who grew up before sexting and hookup apps. Some younger people start taking pictures of their sex lives the moment they start having them. Do you think there’s a generational divide there?
I do think it’s generational, but I think it’s the opposite. I grew up in an Irish Catholic home. You were taught that nudity is a very evil, dirty thing. How I grew up, my body was something to be ashamed of. The current generation may be sending a lot of dick pics, but in terms of their bodies, I think they’re worse. When I’m in the gym locker room, I’ll see a 20-something or 30-something guy stripping down to his underwear, then take a towel, wrap it around himself, then shimmy out of underwear underneath the towel. What are you hiding? I think back to when I was in a locker room when I was younger. The older guys would never cover up—some of them would never even take a towel to the shower with them. They’d just go naked. If anything, the younger generations are even more hung up about their bodies than we were. Social media like TikTok and Instagram are driving that. You scroll through and it’s one perfect body after another.
How do you find your models? I understand that you did one shoot with a gym buddy?
That is proving to be the most difficult thing. I have a friend, a wonderful photographer, who uses hookup apps to reach out to models. I tried that. It didn’t work very well. Mostly it’s word of mouth. I’ve had people reach out to me and say, “I hear you’re a photographer.” I reach out to people on Instagram. That’s how I connected with a couple in D.C. who wanted a, let’s call it a “special” photo shoot.
How do you find your locations?
Through a friend of mine, I found this abandoned depot, over in Newport News, across the river from Virginia Beach. It’s massive, hundreds of acres. It’s going to be developed into housing at some point. We worried that someone might walk in on the shoot. But the place is several football fields big, so if anyone had come upon us, we would have seen them coming.
I did a self-photo shoot at a place near here called False Cape State Park, very close to the North Carolina border. The park is in two halves, the beach half and the part that extends into the bay where there are all these winding paths you can take. What I realized is I could take a naked shot, and by the time I heard someone, I could be dressed—there wasn’t a direct line of sight. I took this great road shot. It was early enough in the morning. I stripped down, took the shot with my timer, and pulled on my shorts again. Just as I pulled on my shorts, a ranger drove by and waved. So he didn’t see me. But had I been a little bit slower, he would have gotten a full view.
What’s it like living in Virginia Beach?
Virginia Beach is two primary things. One, there’s no city, per se. It is a conglomeration of several municipalities into one. Two, it’s very much a tourist town. The main area is the waterfront, which is where all the hotels are. The beaches are very nice. And in the summer—there’s no easy way for me to say this—the beachfront, depending on where you are, can be very low-rent honky-tonk touristy.
We are neighbours to Norfolk, so this area is probably the largest concentration of the U.S. military in the country. The Norfolk Naval Base is our largest naval base and one of the largest naval bases in the world. It was where I was stationed when I was in the Navy many years ago.
It makes the area a bit bipolar. During the election, you would pass row after row of Trump signs, then row after row of Harris signs. We’ve alternated from being dark blue to light red.
Is it a place that I would recommend as a gay destination? Not really. The company I was working for asked me to move as part of the leadership team, and we were getting very tired of the Massachusetts winters.
When you have visitors, where do you take them?
We can take them to the beach. There are lots of cool restaurants in Norfolk. It’s a city that fell on hard times in the 1960s and ’70s, as manufacturing went elsewhere. It had to reinvent itself. There’s an area of Norfolk called Ghent, which is the gay district but also the arts district. I would recommend No Frill Bar & Grill (806 Spotswood Ave., Norfolk, and 1620 Laskin Rd., Virginia Beach). It’s American cuisine, great atmosphere, great staff, American portions at reasonable prices. They usually have a rotating selection of artwork. The Norfolk location is in a cool part of town.
There are only a couple of gay bars left in Norfolk. There’s MJ’s Tavern (4019 Granby St., Norfolk) and The Wave (4107 Colley Ave., Norfolk), which is a dance club. Virginia Beach has the Rainbow Cactus (475 S. Lynnhaven Rd., Virginia Beach), which is a nightclub and show bar that opened in 2023.
The gay bar life is something I haven’t been a part of in decades. I went from doing jello shots to doing diapers.
The Virginia Beach Art Center (532 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach) has a lot of really interesting rotating displays. The region has a good cultural scene including a number of theatre groups. The Virginia Stage Company (108 E. Tazewell St., Norfolk) is a pretty big theatre organization.
What’s your favourite place you’ve ever been?
From a city perspective, it would be New York. There’s just so much to do. From an outdoor perspective, it would be the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon and Washington coast, and Vancouver. I love Vancouver. I had to do a training class in Portland, and I always make trips out of my business trips. So I rented a car and drove west, straight to the ocean. As soon as I got to the ocean, I flipped a coin. Heads left, tails right. It was tails. I took a right turn and started up the coast. The nice thing is that it’s not overdeveloped like Virginia Beach or New Jersey. Driving along the coast, I looked for cars that were pulled over to the side of the road because that meant there were people there. I pulled off and walked down through these amazing redwoods, out onto this huge stretch of white beach. There were a few people there, a couple in the nude. The water was absolutely beautifully clear, but horrifically cold.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
