BK: Naked Pictures of my Ex-Girlfriends by Mark Helfrich 1st Ed HB Rat Press 2000 VG+

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Condition: VG+, Cloth Boards have minor shelve wear, Some minor wrinkling, thumbing to a few pages.

Notes: RARE / OOP 1st Ed 1st Printing HB, Rat Press

What could be less cool than a white dude making a book of nudes about all of his 70s and 80s hook ups with questionable consent? Here are the official publication details.

"Cultural nostalgia is omnipresent as we enter the new millennium, and much of the looking back is focused on the 1970's. It was a time when hedonisim ruled, when being young and American meant a world of sexual freedom in an era untainted by AIDS. For photographer Mark Helfrich it was a time to not only explore these freedoms, but also to document them.

In 'Naked Pictures Of My Ex-Girlfriends', Helfrich shares with us what most have either hidden away or have long ago destroyed - intimate, private pictures of his ex-girlfriends, a decade's worth from 1970 to 1980. Helfrich explains "...It was no big deal photographing my girlfriends topless or nude, almost all of them were thrilled to pose for me, because they knew I was so into it. It was fun. It was like playing a game. It was like living Antonioni's "Blow Up"."

He even goes on to say "many of his girlfriends were willing to be photographed topless or nude." Note the word "Many". Yet, since publication it has come out that all the pictures are staged with models and he wasn't even old enough to have taken these pictures when he claims to. This is pure white male fantasy and for what it's worth, it's unlikely something like this could be published today. For that reason alone it has some cultural value.

"Alas, this book is a bit of a "Blair Witch" project, in that the photos aren't the real deal, but latter day shoots with professional models. The backdrops and hairstyles are all exceedingly well done, enough so that magazine such as The New Yorker, Details, and Time didn't catch on. (Nor did they do the math, apparently Helfrich is a bit young to be graduating highschool in the early 1970s) Helfrich has 'fessed up but does claim that they are re-creations based on his actual history.

What makes this book, alongside the voyeuristic appeal of "amateur" photography, are the descriptions of each woman and photograph that Helfrich gives in notes that appear to be written by hand. They do chart a lot of emotional territory, and it's always interesting to use a book like this as a mirror of our own romantic pasts. The photos are varied enough that they do seem to taken from real life, mostly indoors, with a few "splendor in the grass" moments."

Read more here:
Naked Pictures Story

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