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Rating: Summary: regular boys, just regular boys Review: If the regular boy down the street is what you're after, this may be for you. It's true, these are young (read: 20-26-year-old) hairy (read: leaving as it grows what little body hair they may have) guys. But I look for some charge in a book of naked men and for me that means something to focus on. Call me a fascist, but I need something out of the ordinary, something "ideal" to catch my interest (and isn't photography all about a sort of interest in the things we see or want to look at again and again?) A few of these guys provided that for me (a couple are truly hairy or just look at the lens with an expression that suggests they're showing you something you shouldn't see), but most were just pleasant, young men without their clothes. A particular taste, I guess; just not mine.
Rating: Summary: A true abortion of a book! Delivered before it was ready. Review: Like his book "An English Lad" this thin, meagre offering is desperately poor fare. It is nothing but a collection of snapshots of the sort any Instamatic owner could manage. Technically, they are just risible. As in his earlier book, Butt (no jokes here!) shows little control over the use of light, focus, posing, depth of field control, selection of the best lens, etc. etc..True enough, some of Butt's models are not unattractive in a real-guy from the bar sense. They just lack 'spark': that certain something that connects the viewer to the guy's soul. It's the photographer's job to bring that out, and Butt is singularly inept at doing so. Another reviewer has mentioned that the models weren't truly hairy. Well, as you can actually see the skin of almost all these guys, I guess you can claim they're not sufficiently hirsute. They are, however, more hairy than I like to see. True many books show non-hairy models, but this is only because of shaving to exhibit their pumped-up muscles. There aren't many young pretty-boy books out there. So, there you have it. I found this book to be dismal in all respects. The pictures simply fail to be erotic - Butt cannot distinguish between a photo of an undressed man and an erotic picture of the naked male.
Rating: Summary: A true abortion of a book! Delivered before it was ready. Review: Like his book "An English Lad" this thin, meagre offering is desperately poor fare. It is nothing but a collection of snapshots of the sort any Instamatic owner could manage. Technically, they are just risible. As in his earlier book, Butt (no jokes here!) shows little control over the use of light, focus, posing, depth of field control, selection of the best lens, etc. etc.. True enough, some of Butt's models are not unattractive in a real-guy from the bar sense. They just lack 'spark': that certain something that connects the viewer to the guy's soul. It's the photographer's job to bring that out, and Butt is singularly inept at doing so. Another reviewer has mentioned that the models weren't truly hairy. Well, as you can actually see the skin of almost all these guys, I guess you can claim they're not sufficiently hirsute. They are, however, more hairy than I like to see. True many books show non-hairy models, but this is only because of shaving to exhibit their pumped-up muscles. There aren't many young pretty-boy books out there. So, there you have it. I found this book to be dismal in all respects. The pictures simply fail to be erotic - Butt cannot distinguish between a photo of an undressed man and an erotic picture of the naked male.
Rating: Summary: Some really nice looking young men Review: Once I opened this book, I knew I'd found a winner. These young men look very nice, yet unlike the men in other books, they look like people you could get to know quite easily. A definite step up from the usual "cute, young and hairless" books.
Rating: Summary: Some really nice looking young men Review: Once I opened this book, I knew I'd found a winner. These young men look very nice, yet unlike the men in other books, they look like people you could get to know quite easily. A definite step up from the usual "cute, young and hairless" books.
Rating: Summary: A matter of taste: beauty is in the eye, but Butt... Review: Photography is more than turning a camera on a guy and hoping something will be 1) erotic or 2) art. I can't stand gay photobooks with boys/men with dead facial expressions, and with weak direction from the photographer who fails to tell them to hold their heads up straight. Why must these models look so lifeless and, yech, coy? Hairy implies masculine. Butt may know masculinity, but he needs to get more active behind the lens. Even stills need to be directed. The cover shot is a cliche--which should be a warning. Butt himself needs to take a look at a couple other hairy photo books to get an idea of how to do it. The ultimate standard for hairiness and men who seem connected to their own sensuality and masculinity are Chris Nelson's "Bear Cult" and "Jack Fritscher's American Men," plus hidden away in a collection of stories based on Chris Nelson's "Bear Cult," are some hot photos in "Tales from the Bear Cult" which, while not produced on glossy paper are as well presented as any photo in any one of the bear mags. A model should not be passive--but this is my opinion--because I like to look at models who give the impression they could dominate me, or at least wouldn't roll over straight to the bottom. All the world loves a top. Nelson and Fritscher show men who "can do."
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