Another from the late, great Epinions. I did several of these sorts of photo books, and some of those will be showing up here. Eventually.
I once said to an art dealer friend of mine, as he was mounting an exhibition of the work of yet another California-based Bruce Weber wannabe, “Honey, if you’re going to show beefcake, show Jim French.” French, the founder of Colt Studios, ranks with Bruce of Los Angeles and Bob Mizer of the Athletic Models Guild as one of the pre-eminent practitioners of modern “male photography.”
None of these people made any pretense about creating great art (which is one reason perhaps that I find them preferable to any number of other photographers who do male nudes). Their purpose was simply titillation, which they approached with honesty, and, in the case of Bruce of Los Angeles and Bob Mizer, with a kind of tongue-in-cheek playfulness that is quite refreshing, given the high drama resident in so much contemporary work in this field. French, perhaps because most of his career has spanned a period in which such images could be made and distributed openly, takes himself more seriously; fortunately, he approaches his subject with respect and sympathy and he is a consummate craftsman.
Out of the history of French’s work, I have chosen to review Jim French Men because it is an effective mid-career survey, and I happen to think one of his best books. The content is weighted toward black-and-white work, which in many ways is fortunate: although French displays a good command of color, the production values of Colt Studios, which owns State of Man, the publisher, were not geared toward fine-art reproductions. Nevertheless, there are only one or two images in the book that are truly garish, and the overwhelming majority, both color and monochrome, are what they set out to be: sensual and inviting. One major plus in French’s work is that he doesn’t seem to have an agenda: too many photographers in this area weigh their images down with high-sounding philosophical or political baggage that is simply beyond the work’s ability to bear. French just makes very good figure studies, working from his own considerable skill, talent, and sensitivity, and relies on the image to carry whatever message there may be.
A great deal of this effect depends on the model. Although all of these men are very well-equipped for their roles, none are so massive as to be grotesque – these are, for the most part, body-builders with a sense of proportion. And French himself has a sensitivity for those images that could be art: pictures of Bob Benedetti, Adam Hammer, and Kevin Walker leave behind the soft-porn calendar art that is so often the product of these shoots and, in their portrayals of introspection or confrontation, become portraits rather than merely pictures of naked men. (Walker, who has a lush body to begin with, gives the camera a coolly speculative look that boosts the eroticism of the image almost off the scale, while seated in a demure pose that reveals nothing you wouldn’t want your parents to see.) The standouts, to my mind, are French’s numerous pictures of John Pruitt. French worked with Pruitt frequently from at least 1984, the earliest in this book, through the mid-1990s. Pruitt has a quality that every photographer must dream about: while he is massive, particularly in his earlier pictures, he carries his muscle gracefully, and has an on-camera presence that is rarely found in any subject: He is able to project that elemental massiveness outward, and his body becomes truly sculptural, not only occupying space but defining it. And, where other models might be pretty, Pruitt, particularly in the later pictures where his bone structure becomes apparent, has a hauntingly beautiful face. He presents an image at once powerful, sensual, and vulnerable, and French is enough of an artist to have caught that quality in finely rendered black-and-white and carefully modulated color photographs.
Regrettably, even as fine a craftsman as French will come up with images in which the poses are strained or even ludicrous, and pictures that forego the erotic in favor of the blatant. Jim French Men has its share of those. While French is probably the best in this genre because of his craftsmanship and sensitivity to his subjects, when taken in the context of the range of books of similar nature, his efforts suffer from reproductions that are not among the very best. Nonetheless, in a field becoming more crowded by the day, Jim French deserves a place among the legends.
(State of Man, 1990)
(Note: Signs of the times: In doing a search for the cover image, I clicked the page on Amazon. You can now own a used copy of this book for $434.98; new, it's a mere $3,053.01. I did not pay that much for my copy.)
None of these people made any pretense about creating great art (which is one reason perhaps that I find them preferable to any number of other photographers who do male nudes). Their purpose was simply titillation, which they approached with honesty, and, in the case of Bruce of Los Angeles and Bob Mizer, with a kind of tongue-in-cheek playfulness that is quite refreshing, given the high drama resident in so much contemporary work in this field. French, perhaps because most of his career has spanned a period in which such images could be made and distributed openly, takes himself more seriously; fortunately, he approaches his subject with respect and sympathy and he is a consummate craftsman.
Out of the history of French’s work, I have chosen to review Jim French Men because it is an effective mid-career survey, and I happen to think one of his best books. The content is weighted toward black-and-white work, which in many ways is fortunate: although French displays a good command of color, the production values of Colt Studios, which owns State of Man, the publisher, were not geared toward fine-art reproductions. Nevertheless, there are only one or two images in the book that are truly garish, and the overwhelming majority, both color and monochrome, are what they set out to be: sensual and inviting. One major plus in French’s work is that he doesn’t seem to have an agenda: too many photographers in this area weigh their images down with high-sounding philosophical or political baggage that is simply beyond the work’s ability to bear. French just makes very good figure studies, working from his own considerable skill, talent, and sensitivity, and relies on the image to carry whatever message there may be.
A great deal of this effect depends on the model. Although all of these men are very well-equipped for their roles, none are so massive as to be grotesque – these are, for the most part, body-builders with a sense of proportion. And French himself has a sensitivity for those images that could be art: pictures of Bob Benedetti, Adam Hammer, and Kevin Walker leave behind the soft-porn calendar art that is so often the product of these shoots and, in their portrayals of introspection or confrontation, become portraits rather than merely pictures of naked men. (Walker, who has a lush body to begin with, gives the camera a coolly speculative look that boosts the eroticism of the image almost off the scale, while seated in a demure pose that reveals nothing you wouldn’t want your parents to see.) The standouts, to my mind, are French’s numerous pictures of John Pruitt. French worked with Pruitt frequently from at least 1984, the earliest in this book, through the mid-1990s. Pruitt has a quality that every photographer must dream about: while he is massive, particularly in his earlier pictures, he carries his muscle gracefully, and has an on-camera presence that is rarely found in any subject: He is able to project that elemental massiveness outward, and his body becomes truly sculptural, not only occupying space but defining it. And, where other models might be pretty, Pruitt, particularly in the later pictures where his bone structure becomes apparent, has a hauntingly beautiful face. He presents an image at once powerful, sensual, and vulnerable, and French is enough of an artist to have caught that quality in finely rendered black-and-white and carefully modulated color photographs.
Regrettably, even as fine a craftsman as French will come up with images in which the poses are strained or even ludicrous, and pictures that forego the erotic in favor of the blatant. Jim French Men has its share of those. While French is probably the best in this genre because of his craftsmanship and sensitivity to his subjects, when taken in the context of the range of books of similar nature, his efforts suffer from reproductions that are not among the very best. Nonetheless, in a field becoming more crowded by the day, Jim French deserves a place among the legends.
(State of Man, 1990)
(Note: Signs of the times: In doing a search for the cover image, I clicked the page on Amazon. You can now own a used copy of this book for $434.98; new, it's a mere $3,053.01. I did not pay that much for my copy.)
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