One of our favorite actors, Colton Haynes, is fond of turning the camera on himself and taking self-portraits. Like famed self-portraitist Cindy Sherman, he’s fond of playing with his image.

This week, he’s posted two selections of photos of his latest camera work.

In one, he appears heavily caked in starling makeup and gothic fashion (above). He says the images were inspired by the work of the late, gay fashion designer Alexander McQueen. More specifically, it’s McQueen’s Fall 2009 collection. The British designer died in February 2010.

In the images, Haynes has a face painted white, with exaggerated, bright red lips.

Swipe through the images to the end. He posts two videos to show him actually making the clothing himself by hand, including a headpiece made from white feathers.

A couple of days earlier, Haynes posted another batch of self-portraits he recently shot. These are black and white. Haynes wears a fake mustache and hairpiece. He’s working a leather cowboy look. In a couple of the images, he’s wearing leather chaps with no pants underneath. He censors his backside (unfortunately!). He also adds a throwback photo of him from 2004, modeling similar cowboy attire.

Teenage model years

Haynes began his career as a model when he was a teenager. Back in March 2006, aged 15, he posted some semi-dressed photos for gay magazine XY. Later, as his career began to take off, Haynes tried to get the images wiped from the internet.

A couple of years ago, he shared it himself. He said he wanted to once again be that young individual, unashamed to appear gay and confident in their sexuality.

“I’ve never posted this picture before. In fact, I spent a big part of my career trying to erase it from the internet while I was still in the closet,” he said

“Partly because so many ppl in Hollywood told me I would never work as an openly gay actor, but part of it was because I was incredibly ashamed. It made me sad to see these pictures I had taken as a 15 yr. old model…before I was placed with voice & movement coaches to straighten me up for the cameras…before I learned to see my queerness as a liability. I was jealous of him. The boy in these pictures was so open, so free. He had to be taught that it wasn’t ok to be who he was.”

It’s great to see Haynes, who published his memoir Miss Memory Lane last year, still playing with his image and not giving a hoot if he appears gay, masc, femme, or whatever.

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