I’ve known my friend Peter for the last 4 years or so. We met when he owned a company called Bamapana Vintage and he was selling menswear at Stardust’s Monday market. He invited me to be on his podcast, Scotch and Good Conversation, that at the time he was just beginning. Shortly after I photographed him for a series of portraits I was doing in my living room at the time.
From the first time we worked together he said “If you ever need a nude old guy… I’m it…” And to be honest I was kind of weirded out by this comment. I didn’t know this guy’s intentions and had spent so much of my life associating the idea of nudity with sex. And that felt uncomfortable and even wrong.
Fast forward a few years, I got to know Peter better. We became friends and I realized he wasn’t a creep and that he wasn’t actually all that serious about nude photos. Go figure. Really, the idea made him just as uncomfortable, if not more than me.
So a few months ago, I said, “Peter, you know I’d do nude portraits of you, right?” He laughed it off and then I messaged him on Facebook and told him I was serious.
I wanted to explore nudity in a non-sexual context. I didn’t want to make anything graphic or really even expose private parts. But I also wanted the images we made to be clear; “These are nude images. All of the person is exposed, without being ‘exposed’.”
I don’t know where I’m going with this project yet as I think its the beginning of a series. I’ll leave that up to you the viewer, but I will say - I’m trying to explore this more. I also want to encourage people to be more comfortable with themselves and their bodies. Especially men.
And for myself, I want to know and show others that our bodies and skin can be “out” in a safe and healthy place.
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Give Peter’s podcast a listen. He also recently started a second one called “Dinner and Good Conversation” that I recently had the pleasure of being on as well! We actually did a podcast after the shoot! Ha!
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On a technical note - these images were shot across 3 different film cameras. I used Ilford BW 3200 Speed Film on my Pentax K1000, 35mm 400 Speed Kodak Tmax on an old Nikor, and medium format Ilford BW 3200 speed film on a Mamiya C330. I wanted to do this on film to push myself since much of my work is done digitally!
