The title of a photo spread by photographer Jonathan Kim, of model Matteo Miretti, conveying the enervation of a hot summer day, on the Fashion Grunge site on 2/11/19. I was led to this spread by one photo from it on Pinterest yesterday, showing Miretti so knocked senseless by the heat that it looks like he’s been martyred to it:
(#1) Also, of course, showing the elegant musculature of his body; if this be death, he is beautiful in its repose
(Increasingly naked model, doing a cock tease sequence before full frontal nudity (not shown here, for WordPress modesty), but the beauty of his body, cock included, is admiringly discussed in plain language. So not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)
Yes, it’s ultimate July, 7/31. đ đ đ three tigers to lead us out of the jungle of July. Tomorrow there will be the inaugural rabbits, but I fear August’s bunnies will all be demon creatures (cue Monty Python’s Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog).
From Bill Stewart on 7/29 (Bill feeds me naked men every so often; they’re a hobby we share), an issue of Eroticco magazine featuring the model Jared, as photographed by Roger N.
Each issue of the magazine is a photo shoot, with no text whatsoever beyond the identification of the name of the model and the name of the photographer — in this case, just a (presumably professional) first name in the case of the model (who I’ve not been able to identify further in searches, but then I have little search-fu), first name and initial for the photographer (similarly obscure for me).
The thing about this shoot is that while it is in some sense gay porn, it’s executed with a high level of craft, on the part of both photographer (who sets up the shots and then composes the final photos) and model (who acts in this dramatic sequence, projecting a persona and engaging his viewers). Some of it is funny. Meanwhile, the final cock reveal turns out not to be about Jared’s cock; the cock is just an element of a larger composition that equally features Jared’s face (with a welcoming half-smile) and his perfectly sculpted torso. His cock, large and half-hard, fits the rest of his body perfectly; but large half-hard cocks can’t be viewed as elements of fine art, so I can’t show you the cock here, have to fuzz it out.
Now, the cover of the Eroticco issue. Then 7 shots from the larger sequence in the magazine, showing the full progression in the magazine’s layout. With commentary from me along the way.
A 2019 photography show, featured in AnOther magazine in “Eight New York Couples, Photographed by Ethan James Green” by Jack Moss on 11/6/19:
Tomorrow a beautiful new series from the American photographer goes on display at the National Portrait Gallery, as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition
American photographer Ethan James Green rose to prominence with his black-and-white portraiture of young people in New York City: a first monograph, Young New York, published by Aperture earlier this year, collected these images, the majority of which were photographed among the parks and housing projects of the cityâs Lower East Side. The subjects, who connected to Green in various ways â from the cityâs fashion and art scenes to social media â primarily came from New Yorkâs youthful LGBTQ community, united by a rejection of conformity, in its various guises. âIt is about me having fun with friends and allowing them to be seen as they want to be seen,â Green said at the time.
Now, a new untitled series by Green goes on show as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2019 exhibition at Londonâs National Portrait Gallery, which opens to the public tomorrow. It marks Greenâs return to the personal subject matter and style of Young New York, having spent the past year capturing increasingly high-profile figures â among them Joaquin Phoenix, Rihanna and RuPaul â for publications including American Vogue, Vanity Fair and W (Green has also contributed to both AnOther and Another Man, recently photographing Ashton Sanders for the cover of the latter). This new series, made up of eight monochrome portraits, each of a New York-based couple, is this yearâs âIn Focusâ display, a part of the Taylor Wessing exhibition which celebrates the work of an internationally renowned contemporary photographer.
Now: six of the eight couples. And then a note on the magazine from which this story comes.
On Pinterest, this image of a man embracing a (male) statue:
Gay Pygmalion and the statue he loves
This from oatbug’s Tumblr account, where it’s dated 10/7/22, with the note:
reblogged from luvwish; originally from executed-deactivated20161004
But this last link is apparently now dead, so we don’t know who the ultimate creator of the image was, and what they had in mind. I post the image here because I find it moving (but then I’m a fool for same-sex affection of all sorts). And beautifully composed.
It’s all about male faces and the great variety of masculinities — there will be six pictures — Â as explored by photographer Joseph Barrett (who I was first alerted to by a 7/24 Pinterest posting).
JB’s incredibly chaotic description of what he’s about, untouched by my hand (but with some elucidating comments of mine), from his website:
Joseph Barrett Photography: See more ideas about barrett joseph pennsylvania impressionist [a completely different artist from this Joseph Barrett]. Changing the masculine portrait. Finding the essence of man in portraiture [and Redefining the male gaze]
Joseph barrett photography. Freelance photographer at self employed photography freelance photographer at self employed photography norwich university of the arts. [Norwich University of the Arts, a public university in Norwich, Norfolk, UK] Traditional notions of masculinity have been thrown out of the window. In this interview he talks about breaking preconceived notions of masculinity in the context of the gender spectrum. … [barrett:] i think it is necessary for people to see photographs without implications of gender and sexual orientation for new masculinity
(Images of the male body as sexual object, with discussion of male genitals and man-on-man sex in street language, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest)
Beginning the new week with some racy photographic celebrations of the male body from Vallantiro14’s Tumblr site. The first image, Sexy Gardener — of a young man wearing nothing but a fitted white shirt, in the process of watering seedlings in peat pots, viewed from behind so as to display his fine masculine buttocks along with his hairy legs (which promise a hairy chest and hairy forearms, concealed at the moment by the shirt) — came to me from Bill Stewart on 7/20:
(#1) A fine composition, carefully calculated to display the very desirable body of an ordinary guy (not a gym-built model) engaged in useful everyday work (not posing seductively for the viewer)
The fitted shirt shows off his broad shoulders, suggesting the pleasures of his upper body. Meanwhile, his naked buttocks — which are pretty much what the photo is about — peek out from beneath the tail of the shirt. This is what is called, in coarse slang, a hot butt, or in openly dirty talk, a fuckable ass. (As a young man I had such buttocks, often commented on by gay men; my buttocks were then an open announcement of my availability — I just loved getting fucked — and an invitation to guys who wanted to fuck me.)
But the temperature of the photo in #1 is low — just showing, not advertising, though we’re entitled to wonder why this guy is watering seedlings minus his pants.
Well, this is not a photo from everyday life, even a posed one, but a fantasy extension of real life. Vallantiro14 could have given us this photo with the guy in tight shorts that would still display the outlines of his attractive buttocks, but he chose instead to go with the fanciful, putting those buttocks on display.
From Bill Stewart:
title of [Vallantiro14’s blog] blog being âFashionableâ. Lots of pictures, mostly speedos and often in Rio de Janeiro.
That’s where I’m going now. These are hot sexy guys frankly posing seductively, but with their dicks, balls, and asses enclosed in (mostly hot-neon-colored) speedo-style swimsuits, sometimes with visible hard-ons, but always showing off their barely covered dicks and handsome asses. They are also all smooth-bodied and mostly inkless.
(Focused on stud hustlers, with one really racy but not X-rated photo, and text that manages to talk about the male genitals and man-on-man sex entirely in decorous language. But still, it’s about stud hustlers, so not to everyone’s taste.)
Encountered through a Pinterest posting, this photo of a young street hustler from a 2010 exhibition of Leon Levinstein’s urban photography:
(#1) Street Scene: Young Man Leaning against Shopfront Window, from 1972
Now, about the exhibition, and then about this hustler and his presentation of himself.
Following up on earlier postings about additions to my domestic environment, which came with mumblings of getting pictures of these things (I have no way to take photos myself any more) — now fulfilled by Erick Barros and his phone.
First, the new photo gallery “Street Life”. Then, the new equipment in the kitchen: wheat straw bowls, mugs, and cups to add to the plates from an earlier order.
A just-installed photo gallery on the wall above the desk in the study of my condo. An addition to the visual density of the place, providing enjoyment for me, but also intended to absorb and please friends and visitors (I am a deeply sociable person, and I like to entertain, in several senses.)
About Street Life. A display of six sex-tinged (but not actually X-rated) photos of men on the street (from Samson McGee, who maintains a gigantic library of malesex photos for sale), each with a fortune from a fortune cookie. I have given them titles and ordered them below in a kind of natural progression; here with the fortunes:
— Soon Paid Off: street hustler, iconic and tough; All of your hard work will soon be paid off.
— Performance over Speed: street hustler, not at all toughened up yet; People forget how fast you did a job — but they remember how well you did it.
— Time Not Money: two sailors, possibly cruising, maybe even hustling; A friend asks only for your time and not money.
— Offer Affection and a Sea-going Hard-On: two sailors strolling, one with a hard-on; Love is being offered to you, be affectionate in return!
— Offer Affection and an Unbuttoned Hard-On: two guys talking on the street, one with a hard-on and his fly open; [once again] Love is being offered to you, be affectionate in return!
— Fish Sticks and Moose Knuckles: two guys talking on the street  in front of a shop selling fish sticks (one sporting a tremendous moose-knuckle); Every wise man started out by asking many questions.
Once again, I would like to give you a photo of the display, but I have to wait until I can get someone to take a picture for me.
The visual density of my environment. First there are the books — in the big main room, the study, and the bedroom. Mostly a deeply random collection of things saved from the dispersal of my 40,000-volume professional library, though there are some coherent subcollections. But possibly worth scanning: I doubt that there’s anyone else in the world with this collection of titles, so you might find some surprises.
Then on almost every remaining horizontal surface, collections of objects — remarkable, pretty, funny, sexy, artfully made, full of affectionate associations. Gay symbols, penguins, mammoths, phallic symbols. In the heavily X-rated bedroom, representations of dicks, simulacra of dicks, creatures with bodyparts in the shape of dicks, and so on.
And on almost every available vertical surface, artworks, cartoons, collages, Zwicky images, postcards (men, animals, food, whatever), and photographs, both family photographs  and hot guys. In the heavily X-rated bedroom, a huge assortment of my XXX-rated homoerotic comic collages.
Much here to amuse the eye and engage the mind. Come visit sometime.
(There will be discussion of penises and vaginas, some of it using street language, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)
Having discovered and posted about a vintage photograph of three young men displaying their swimmer’s bodies (which I bought and mounted on a bookend, to make a free-standing portable photo display), I was led by Etsy to other sources of somewhat similar photographs, in particular the trove of photographic male art offered by The Male Image Art Shop (dba TheMaleImageArtShop), among which this photo caught my eye:
(#1) “Dmitry and Matteo”, as advertised on-line: the more Slavic-looking bodybuilder type on the left is presumably Dmitry, and the more Mediterranean-looking swimmer type on the right Matteo; their gazes are fixed on us, the viewers, with no expression; Dmitry has a friendly, or perhaps a proprietary, arm on Matteo’s shoulder
Other than this, we know nothing. But we struggle to extract a story that it’s telling us, some story about the relationship between the two men (and possibly about why they’re posing for us), so we ask: when was this photo taken? where are they? Â why are they naked? what are their lives like? what does that arm on the shoulder mean? is this photo a slice of these men’s lives, or are the men random male models posed to create a puzzle for us?
