Saturday, January 31, 2009

James Bidgood returns in the new issue of OUT




I was in Barnes & Noble today, looking at the magazines, when what do I find but a Pierre et Gilles photo on the cover of the current OUT magazine. P&G are favorites of mine, so I picked it up and flipped through it to find something even nicer -- in a spread of guys in speedos, a brand new photo by James Bidgood!

Bidgood is known today as the uncredited auteur behind the 1971 gay film classic "Pink Narcissus." His photographic work in the 60s was featured in such magazines as "Muscleboy," "Demi-Gods" and "The Young Physique." Due to the limited publication of his work (I don't think much, if any, appeared outside of these three magazines) he was nearly forgotten until Bruce Benderson re-discovered him and published a beautiful compendium of his work through Taschen in 1999 (I bought it when it came out and adore it!). That out-of-print book, simply titled "Bidgood," is due to be reprinted at the end of March.

Doing a little Googling I find that other blogs have already picked up on Bidgood's return to the camera -- I don't go shopping too often! -- so please forgive this late jump onto the bandwagon. Many thanks to Hunk du Jour for the second photo -- I don't know where they found it as it is not in the magazine and I couldn't find it at OUT.com.

1 comment:

Lawrence said...

The thing that I love most about James bidgood is that he is so humble. When Pink Narcissus was released the director was listed as "anonymous" and he didn't care, in today's culture where everyone is fame hungry, that is refreshing.