I “stumbled upon” this all male blog today.

It’s a photographic blog full of user generated images. Guys who want to be validated as “attractive” submit all sorts of photos to be posted in return for their 15 minutes of fame.

Warning: The pics range from fully-clothed portrait photos to nude images, and even photos of explicit sexual acts.   However, all of the photos have two things in common — it’s a man’s photo (and many men prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt) and there is an iPhone in the picture.  The owners are selling “advertising” space on the side to support it.

What I find really interesting is that men from all over are taking the opportunity to exploit themselves, their phone and in many cases their most intimate body parts on this blog.  They want to be validated, seen and exposed.

I find the whole concept edgy, I guess that’s why I like it.

So I finally saw “Naked Boys Singing” during a trip to New York City last week.  I have to say I was a bit surprised by the “gratuitous nudity” but it was excellently done.

The actors were impressive musicians with talent, not naked guys showing off bodies.  The men came in all shapes and sizes, only a few of which were in great physical shape.  It was great to see a performance that challenged the status quo and western taboos in general.

Nonetheless, where there is a demand, there is supply.  Classic economics, right?

I’m curious to see “before” and “after” photos, if you find some, please let me know.  They do say not to “knock it” unless you’ve “tried it” and that “seeing is believing” — so friends, if you’ve got some photos to share, please do.

Naked Boys Singing, the international hit musical revue now in its 10th smash year Off-Broadway, is a show I have still not yet seen.

I’m ashamed.  Besides being offered free tickets by a Vegas cast member, being in New York twice while it was showing and having no excuse what so ever — I’m going to do my best to see the show before the end of the year.

Producer Tom D’Angora has had a long history with Naked Boys Singing starring in the highly controversial, and highly publicized, 2001 Provincetown production. In 2001 Naked Boys Singing performed within 500 feet from a church, violating an old blue law that prohibited nudity. Slapped with cease-and-desist orders at every performance the show created quite the stir! Despite the controversy the little nudie show that could DID! Naked Boys Singing managed to sell out the entire run, adding performances each week, it made national news with stories on CNN and other news networks, and eventually went before a packed town hall to win their case and get the laws rewritten!

One of my models, Richard Poplawski, murdered 3 police officers in cold blood in his home a few months back, after an argument with his mother about his dog.

This excerpt is from an article on WTAE Channel 4′s website (the full article can be found here)

PITTSBURGH — The man accused of fatally shooting three Pittsburgh police officers and injuring two others was alternately described by friends as “an easygoing, fun-loving guy” and a known gun enthusiast who was prepared to die after he woke up on a bright spring Saturday morning.

Richard Poplawski photo from Pittsburgh police.
Richard “Pop” Poplawski was moved Sunday night around 10:30 p.m. from UPMC Presbyterian to the Allegheny County Jail, where he will remain held without bond pending a preliminary hearing.

Between volleys of gunfire at his Stanton Heights home, Poplawski, 22, was apparently calling friends and family.
“He just told my nephew, Billy, that he was shot twice — one in the arm, once in the leg,” aunt Marianne Klimczyk told WTAE Channel 4′s Bob Mayo. “He just told him to tell everybody that ‘I love them’ because he didn’t think that he was going to get out of there alive.”

Some realities have set in — like you really have no idea what someone sitting across from you is capable of.  Another reality is that life really is taken for granted.  Another is that things aren’t always what they seem.

After the incident, I wondered for months if I should release the photos.  I wondered if I could help to communicate who Rich Poplawski was, how he presented himself and how he viewed himself in an effort to help a stunned community and city better understand how and why Rich could have performed such an awful crime.  I wondered if I could use the artwork as a vehicle to provide financial support to the families who are suffering from their losses.

I have a pretty elaborate file on Rich — which includes all of the following:

• Fully signature-released access to several hundred nude photos of Rich Poplawski
• Hand writing samples complete with signature, printed name and address
• Personal emails detailing intimate information about Rich – from his own perspective about:

Fully signature-released access to digitally personally-taken self portrait

His work in adult entertainment

His comfort level with nudity

His personal art interests and feelings toward art

His desire to be a part of my nude artwork

His self image and tattoos

• Photographs of his drivers license ID
• Typed raw notes from the personal interview with Rich about:

His personal expectations and objectives in the adult industry

His body art, tattoos, and how they relate to patriotism

Rich’s feelings about 9-1-1

Rich’s ego and self image

His confidence

Why he was in Pittsburgh and not in Florida

His sexual escapades

Details about his father and parents marriage

His academic interests

His career goals

What he likes best about his body

What he dislikes most about his body

Detailed feelings about his own: head, hair, eyes, face, lips, teeth, smile, chest, hands, arms, torso, v-line, penis, buttocks, quads, hamstrings, calves and feet

Media is difficult to work with though, and I didn’t want the release of my work with Rich to be a burden on the families or any other party involved.

Beyond that, I need to ensure that anything I release would be dedicated to fairly and competently presenting the persona of Rich Poplawski as he presented himself to me.  No “spin.”  I also needed to be sure the media would respectfully address the artwork that I do — positively portraying my name, brand and image at all times.  Finally, after a few offers from media, I opted to withdraw and completely disconnect for several months.  That time is over.  I am now back.

Regardless, even though I’m not certain if I’m going to release my work with Rich anytime soon, I will be doing more work with more models and I’m looking forward to it!

Apparently the youth of America are suffering from low self esteem. Many of them are not comfortable with themselfs, their identity, gender, sexuality, etc. From what I’ve been reading, the list goes on and on. Nudists believe they have the answer to some of the many questions posed.

This article, from the Pittsburgh Tribune but Based on a New York Times article, talks about a “summer nudie camp for kids”
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_140985.html

According to The Times article, parents say the camp promotes a healthy body image among kids and teens. Nudists believe, after all, that the body is nothing to be ashamed of and we should all be more comfortable with who we are.

Apparently The New York Times reports that the American Association for Nude Recreation has begun a nationwide expansion of summer camps for nudists aged 11 to 18. While this club is expanding to promote nude swimming, on the other side of the coin, the clubs that have been promoting it for over a hundred years are now putting a stop to it. Yes, the Milwaukee Athletic Club just broke with its 121-year-old tradition and they now require men to wear suits when they swim – and some longtime swimmers aren’t happy about it.

The full article located at http://www.redorbit.com/news/oddities/23361/health_club_ends_nude_swimming_tradition/ explains that:

the club has maintained two pools: one for women and children, requiring suits, and the other for men only to swim laps, in the nude if they wished.

On the other side of the globe, there is “outrage over nude swimming” where parents are refusing to let their children swim in Levenshulme baths – because it’s being hired for naked male swimming sessions. This article gives a possible perspective of a threatened mother when this new social taboo is presented.

What’s so odd is that 40 years ago, nude swimming was the norm. It’s what was acceptable. Below, you can see that they even used to shower in groups before they jumped in the pool.

A paradigm shift has happened and I’m curious as to why? I really can’t help but wonder — of all the factors that have gone into this shift. The YMCAs used to enforce nude swimming and many, like the one below, even gyms right above or next to the pool. Between laps, guys would just head over and lift weights — yes, completely nude.

Boys used to even compete in the nude –

Some may wonder why I write about nudity so often. As a nude photographer, folks contact me constantly and say they want to shoot with me — but not completely nude. I understand their fears, but my blogging in many ways is an attempt to bring more understanding to the concept of acceptance of being involved in nude art.

Here are some more nude swimming photos I’ve found in my research:

Burton Snowboards released a line of “Love” snowboards featuring a nude Playboy model.  Their marketing pitch was:

Hi. My name is Love™ and I’m on the market for someone who’s looking to score serious action, no matter where they like to stick it. I enjoy laps through the park; long, hard grinds on my meaty Park Edges; followed by a good, hot waxing. Whether you’re hitting it from the front or the back, my mid wide shape, supple flex, and twin tips like it kinky. Keegan and Mikkel love riding me, I hope you will too.

As you could imagine, some didn’t take well to this.  I can’t imagine why…

The images weren’t even that graphic:

After a bit of controversy, Burton released this comment:

As a result of the opinions of an isolated group of individuals, we want to clarify where Burton stands on our board graphic artwork. We respect everyone’s right to his or her own opinion, and we also respect the right to protest. That said, here is our position: Burton supports freedom of artistic expression. Board graphics are artwork, and art can be offensive to some and inspiring to others. Snowboarding is a sport and a lifestyle where boundaries are pushed in terms of artwork, similar to the world of music, video games and movies. From Lange ski boot ads since the 1970’s featuring barely clothed women, to the Burton Love series, winter sports have a long history of tongue-in-cheek graphics and advertising. Our product development process is driven by riders, and when some of our pro riders asked for these graphics, we backed them. Burton is a global company, and these boards have been embraced and are a success around the world. We are not breaking any laws by creating these boards, and it is our sincere belief that these graphics do not condone or encourage violence towards women in any way.  Burton’s support of women, from entry level employees here in Burlington to our team riders on Olympic podiums, is unparalleled.  We, as a company, are immensely proud of our record here. We will keep these boards in the market and have no intention of recalling them.

Edgy bastards, eh?  I love it.

I was in Rome vacationing and I came across this wonderfully sculpted ‘modelesque’ Roman 20-something.  It is often said that Rome wasn’t built in a day.  I subscribe to the idea that it is very difficult to accomplish anything substantial immediately.  Good things do come with time and bodies are sculpted in much the same way.   I shot this model a few years ago while traveling abroad.  He is a good example of a carefully sculpted body that only time and hard work can create.

I briefly spoke with him and through his broken understanding of my english, I was able to make it clear to him that he was going to come to my hotel and shoot some photos with me.  While that sounds oddly stalkerish and creepy here when I type it, I find that it is really quite a different experience when it is happening in person.  If you are comfortable in your own skin, and you are speaking to someone else of the same nature who has worked for years sculpting their body, this is actually a really easy conversation to have.

I’m quite nice and beings that I’m an athletic 20-something myself, perhaps it wasn’t the oddest request he’s ever received.   Also, considering that I don’t financially compensate my models, I had to explain that I would be giving him a copy of the work.  He was thrilled at the opportunity to be a model and have some professionally-taken photos done.  Apparently, in Rome, men are really proud of their bodies.  Nudity doesn’t seem to be nearly the big deal that it is in the States.  He was flattered and before I knew it we were in my hotel room, he was naked and we were shooting on location in the heart of beautiful Italia.

Admidetly, this was one of my first shoots with an “uncircumcized” man.  To date, I had not seen an uncircumsized penis.  I’m a little embarrased to admit that I thought something may have been wrong at first.  He later explained to me that most Europeans are not circumsized.  The only penises I had seen in gym classes through grade school and college had been circumsized.  At this point, this work really was becoming more and more of a “study” to me.  I was discovering and studying the physical-cultural differences in men between different countries at the young age of 22 or 23 at the time.

While the penis is such a guarded and sometimes taboo ‘member’ of the man’s anatomy, this was my first chance to really associate it with diversity and variety.  I guess I had overlooked most of them, I didn’t realize how different they really are.

Originally named The Poet, the piece was part of a commission by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris to create a monumental portal to act as the door of the museum. Rodin based his theme on The Divine Comedy of Dante and entitled the portal The Gates of Hell. Each of the statues in the piece represented one of the main characters in the epic poem. The Thinker was originally meant to depict Dante in front of the Gates of Hell, pondering his great poem. (In the final sculpture, a miniature of the statue sits atop the gates, pondering the hellish fate of those beneath him.) The sculpture is nude, as Rodin wanted a heroic figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to represent intellect as well as poetry.

Rodin made a first small plaster version around 1880. The first large-scale bronze cast was finished in 1902, but not presented to the public until 1904. It became the property of the city of Paris – thanks to a subscription organized by Rodin admirers – and was put in front of the Panthéon in 1906. In 1922, it was moved to the Hôtel Biron, which was transformed into a Rodin Museum.

More than any other Rodin sculpture, The Thinker moved into the popular imagination as an immediately recognizable icon of intellectual activity; consequently, it has been subject to endless satirical use. This started in Rodin’s lifetime.

In case you could not tell, I lifted that right out of Wikipedia.  The reason I’m focusing on The Thinker is because I recently came across an interesting photo as I was digging through my years of archives.  I started to go through some photos from one of my first shoots ever and I came across this one.

This model was one of my first and this photo is one of the first photos I really liked.  It reminds me of The Thinker, but in a 20th century point of view.

Months prior to the shoot, I read that this tattoo, the bio-hazard emblem, is often used in the gay scene to depict being HIV positive.  I remember talking to this individual about the tattoo and he was completely unaware of this at the time that he got the tattoo.  He had since heard this several times.  I guess that is part of the risk you take when you get a tattoo.  You never know what that symbol may already mean to some people or what it may mean to others in the future.  This reminded me of the Asian emblems that non-Asian language speakers (or readers) have tattooed on their body.  One might ‘think’ that folks would ‘think’ these lifetime decisions through more thoroughly, perhaps even do a little more research up front; however, with a little alcohol, cash and an hour or two to spare I guess you never know.

Regardless, the story of the tattoo, the remnants tied to one of my first shoots, and the photo that ultimately (and beautifully) correlates with the ‘Gates of Hell’ in today’s modern pop culture pushed me over the edge to write about it this morning.