Sketch legend:
If the depiction of men in nude photography has steadily increased since the 1970s, this is less due to the emancipation efforts of the women's movement and the glossy magazines for women, such as "Playgirl", and more to the homoerotic photographers who have "rediscovered" the male nude as an art form in the tradition of black and white nude photography.
This may have been helped by the fact that the self-image of homosexual men developed almost in parallel and they found a platform in numerous bodybuilding magazines to make their work accessible to a wider audience.
Probably the best known black and white nude photographer in this field in the seventies, eighties and nineties was the American former sculptor Robert Mapplethorpe, who created a powerful dimension of male nudes, especially with his works of athletic African-Americans, which he rendered both erotically desirable and aesthetically appealing.
A courageous and trend-setting book on the subject of nude photography of men in the German-speaking cultural area is the black-and-white photo book "Männer" (1984) by Munich-based Herlinde Koelbl, which interested readers should definitely consult for inspiration. Although some of these nude portraits are even condemned by some critics as being too "aggressive", this illustrated book shows a remarkable range on this subject, which has long been unprecedented here in such a concentrated form. It was not until October 2004 that Sylvie Blum continued this tradition in a beautiful way with her illustrated book "M".
Even today, nude photographs of men are rarely taken in comparison to those of women. It was only in advertising that a trend reversal occurred in the nineties: Undressed male bodies are now appearing relatively frequently - albeit with the genitals modestly concealed in jeans or, as here, behind the model's hand.
Acceptance among the population extends as far as the (preferably muscular) unclothed upper body - but not (yet) much further. Upstairs hui - downstairs pfui; this seems to aptly describe the current state of the mostly heroizing and idealizing nude photography of men. A look at the history of the visual arts shows that this was not always the case: early Greek sculptors mostly used men and boys as models, while women and girls were rarely modeled in comparison.
In the meantime, the personality (embodied by the face) can be given equal prominence in nude photographs alongside the body of the (male) model. And the genitalia, as shown here, is no longer seen as something "unseemly" or "disturbing" by the photographer, but it is also not emphasized, but seen and photographed as something natural, something that "belongs", so to speak. It is interesting to note that it is precisely this kind of naturalness that many people dislike.
They would still prefer to banish the nude depiction of the man to the bedroom. The wiping effect adds dynamism to this photo.
While the photographers of the first nudes in the early days of male nude photography were still trying to create photographs that were as alienated as possible (e.g. using soft focus) and anonymous (models turned their faces away), later on emphasis was placed on razor-sharp images, with the aesthetics being achieved by means of skillful lighting.
As with this photo, the tradition of bodybuilding photography still lives on: grazing and sidelight as well as oiled bodies are the tools of this type of male nude photography.
A sample contract for a model release is available as working material.
