Book review: Juan-Carlos & Flasche -- Photographing the Male

Ricardo Juan-Carlos, photography by Phil Flasche -- Photographing the Male - How to photograph the male form in action and repose
ISBN 051742133X
ISBN 1902328043 (Eagle Editions reprint edition)

5 stars -- superb "how to" on a rarely covered subject

It would be easy to glance at this book and dismiss it as just another coffee-table art book, but it is in fact an excellent photography "how to" book. It was written in 1983 and it shows -- there is no mention of digital cameras, or even the most modern developments in film cameras -- but it still gives a solid grounding in basic photography techniques and how to apply them to photography of the male figure. Much of the material in this book is equally applicable to digital cameras, and potential readers shouldn't be put off by the age of the book. Practical advice on things like the effects of different lighting, composing the picture, and displaying the final result will be useful regardless of the type of camera used.

The book starts with very basic principals of photography, and goes on to show how to apply them in male glamour photography. As such it will be useful to amateur photographers ranging from those who have never used more than a point-and-shoot pocket camera to serious hobbyists. My feeling is that it will also be of use to the professional looking to move into a different genre, but not being a professional myself I don't have the experience to judge this.

The book is crammed with example photos illustrating the points made in the text. These photos have a very practical use in the book, but they also make it a very nice coffee-table art book. There is a clear emphasis on male gay eroticism, but these photos are erotic art, rather than standard centrefold porn, and there's a great deal of variety in settings and poses. It's well worth buying just to look at the pretty pictures, and artists may well find it a useful reference book.

It's been reprinted a number of times, sometimes with different cover art. My copy was printed in 1998 by Eagle Editions and it appears to have been reprinted at least once since then. It doesn't appear to be in print at the time of writing, but is usually available second-hand, and you may see a new copy from time to time.

Crown/Crescent/Random House ISBN 051742133X
Photographing the Male at Barnes and Noble
Photographing The Male at amazon.com
Photographing the Male at amazon.co.uk


Eagle Editions ISBN 1902328043
Photographing the Male at amazon.com
Photographing the Male at amazon.co.uk

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600 words yesterday and 500 today.

Am pleased because there's a new and very enthusiastic review of The Syndicate up on amazon.co.uk. I don't recognise the username and don't think it's someone I actually know, but it's clear it's someone who's encountered me online, as they know that predatrix and I are working on a new book for the series. If you're reading this, thank you.

Oh aye -- I finished Harald, and greatly enjoyed it, although there were stylistic issues that didn't bother me but will probably result in a substantial number of people bouncing off the book. Detailed review will probably follow at some point, but I would strongly suggest finding excerpts (I think there are some on the Baen website somewhere) and reading to see if you like the style.

Last year I wrote an essay about fanfic, "On fanfic -- Some answers to the question 'You're such a good writer, why don't you write for money?'. It was a response to the then-latest iteration of the Great Fanfic Ruckus.

That was my _second_ response to the kerfuffle. My first response was to comment in a thread in someone else's LiveJournal with the theme "fanfic is great, but it's still understandable why some authors freak about it" -- mostly because that's _my_ take on it as well, and up until then most of the pro-fanfic posts I'd seen were scornful of the idea that authors had any right to feel upset by what fanficcers did with their characters (partly in response to the "all fanficcers are Evil Plagiarising Illiterate Scum" tone of most of the anti-fanfic posts). I'd always meant to take my contribution to that discussion and work up a stand-alone essay out of it, but a bad case of Real Life intervened. Now I find that someone has written pretty much what I would have liked to write, only he's done a better job of it than I would have. Here's Hal Duncan's take on things:
http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com/2006/05/fanfiction-kerfuffle.html