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Books | Mags | Articles | Ads | Film

A Magazine: Playboy (USA), February, 1975

This 1975 edition was given to my partner as a gift, it’s his birth month and year. Ive made a selection of my favourites or of the more interesting pages which incorporate imagery of women in them to show here.

I find the cover of this edition really beautiful, whimsical and romantic, more so than other editions Ive seen.

Above is a pull-out postcard which a reader can use to apply for a subscription to the magazine with the statement: “Knowing what a man wants”.

You can even order life-size (!) posters of your favourite Playmates or bridge decks/playing cards (below).

In comparison to the cover of the magazine I was pretty surprised by this editorial featuring Linda Lovelace. She was an American pornographic actress made famous for her role in the hardcore 1972 movie Deep Throat. I suppose its maybe not so surprising considering her context,- I just didn’t expect ( maybe rather conservativly) the magazine to publish content with men and women together in a sex act.

The above image reminder me so much of the below, very famous painting by French artist Gustave Courbet called L’Origine du monde (“The Origin of the World”)

Above and below is the Miss February Playmate centrefold.

This below editorial campaign for a ties, “Fit to be Untied”, shows two models being tied up with three men on the double page spread and, on the other, a single page spread one women, wrists bound. The men in suits the women in half undress.

Categories
Books | Mags | Articles | Ads | Film Women I've Shot

Cover shoot:
Playboy South Africa’s April 2013 Edition

This is the April edition of Playboy South Africa which I shot with Yolande Malherbe in my studio in Cape Town. It was a really fantastic shoot with beautiful lingerie brands and lots of gold and sparkly accessories.

The theme for the shoot was “selfies” and we used original Polaroid type film to shoot a series of selfies (some are shown in this post). We also incorporated a Polaroid camera in some of the images.

A TV crew joined the shoot and did some filming for an edition of Glambition,- Jo-Ann Strauss’s TV series at that time.

The shoot was all done with a sort of white-crumpled-sheets background, black lingerie, accessories and Polaroid’s. I really loved this shoot and had so much fun doing it.

Ive mixed in some behind the scenes shots below.

Below is a self portrait I shot, just for fun. It was the same set-up as the cover of the magazine.

Below are more behind the scenes shots and also my interview with Jo-ann.

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Interviews & Conversations Women I've Shot

SA Leather Shoot
With Una Alexia Karlsen

I met Una in 2017 when she came to my studio for her portrait photoshoot after winning the title of Ms Leather South Africa. Ive added a selection of her portraits here.

Categories
Women I've Shot

“The Housewives”, Private Commissions:
This is Caylin

(Note: “The Housewives” was a term I fondly coined in 2006 after I started getting shoot requests from private, individual women who became my clients. Many of the women who contacted me were married and in their mid 30’s and were doing the shoots as gifts to their husbands. The folder in my archives is still called this and so I’ve stuck to it, in part just for the irony: most of these women are not “housewives” at all, but strong independent and forward thinking women who I have had the honour of documenting.

All are private commissions and the demographic has changed substantially over the years. Some I’m still in contact with, others I’ve totally lost contact with, some have become friends, some may wish not to have their real names used, others don’t mind, some may have their faces obscured for privacy reasons, others have generously shared their experiences of being photographed.)

This is Caylin. I photographed her in 2018 in the beautiful home of a friend who kindly let me use the space as a location.

The series of images where intended as a gift for her fiancé and were given to him the night before their wedding day, very romantic!

Caylin was so wonderful to work with, she’s strong, confident and beautiful and had great reference images for me to work from for the shoot.

We shot about 5 different looks of which Ive included a few here. We used a mix of lingerie from my ‘prop collection’ and garments/items Caylin brought with her.