Dan Kane ... In 1970, as Dan Kane prepared for a transformative year abroad as an exchange student, his mother gifted him a modest Instamatic camera, suggesting he might want to capture moments of his journey. Neither could have foreseen that this small gesture would ignite a lifelong passion and career. Now, "over a hundred thousand images later" and after decades spent living in Berlin, Kane returns to his native South Dakota, offering the people of his home state a glimpse into the profound artistry inspired by that simple gift. Kane’s steadfast commitment to analog photography defines his body of work, which delves into the interplay of form and shadow. His visual exploration of the male human form as a terrain of shapes and contours finds a compelling resonance in this exhibition where his figurative work is presented in dialogue with his striking photographs of South Dakota's sweeping landscapes and dramatic scenery. Through predominantly black-and-white photographs, Kane evokes both the nuanced beauty and enigma of his subjects, while grounding his vision in a mastery of design elements and principles that echo classical and academic artistic traditions.

 

Alan Lyon ... Alan Lyon loved taking pictures since he took his first photography class in high school, and he is inspired by the love he has for his home city. He has photographed many different subjects, scenes, and mo-ments. There's a picture around every corner. He is surrounded both by natural beauty and interesting people. He uses his camera to document the world and then print that magic for others to share with him. His focus is in male photography art, specifically ridding of shame and welcoming acceptance. His photos tell his story. Through his prints and photo books, he invites you to bring bits of his stories into your life and home."And your art captures something that seems to have disappeared from gay life with mainstreaming. There is a freedom and fun, frolic nature.” He believes his work is a mirror verse, a window; none of his images photoshop out anything.

 

John Dugdale ... John Dugdale (born 1960 in Connecticut) is an American art photographer. Internationally renowned he creates poignant and stirringly intimate imagery using 19th century photographic processes and a 19th century aesthetic. At the age of 33, Dugdale had a transformative experience of nearly total blindness due to a stroke and CMV retinitis, an HIV-related illness. Completely blind in his right eye, Dugdale found himself seeing with less than twenty percent visibility in his left eye. While blindness ended his successful commercial photography career, he found himself free to explore his fine art, using friends and family members as studio assistants.

 

Franz Fleissner ... Franz Fleissner is based in Sweden. He has been producing pictures for many years and his work has been published in several art photography books and magazines such as The Romantic Male Nude, Studio magazines, (Australia) and Playgirl Magazine.” After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts School in Sweden he found a new passion (and soon to be obsession) in photography and started his first photographic projects in 1995. With a background In fine art potography Franz found his inspiration in the great masters of painting and soon adapted the classical lighting as used when sculpting and painting. He also found the genre which inspired him the most – the male nude accentuated as “macho”. It also turned out that Sweden was the perfect base for this genre with an excellent range of good looking male models, and with the liberal people living in the North it has not been too difficult finding them.

 

Erick Monterrosa ... Erick Monterrosa (1989-) (Masaya, Nicaragua) believes in a philosophy of challenging what is normal and uses photography as a medium to address social issues in his country that stem from social stigmas. His purest work, which allows him to connect with his feminine side, fights to promote liberty as a right, equality as a premise and the question of gender as theme of constant debate. His photographs are used to transcend reality and to challenge his subjects to bare their souls in front of the camera and to go beyond their limits. That is why for him, this expression and form of art is a dynamic, empathetic endless dance with the senses, beauty, idealized perfection and the aesthetic figure. Experimentation is the basis of his work, which holds faithful to a style that focuses on creating the mundane into something magical.

 

Daniel Nassoy ... Photographe spécialisé en nu masculin, portrait et nature. La trajectoire de de Daniel Nassoy a commencé par la création avec des moyens très simples – quelques lumières, une tenture noire – d’un petit théâtre nocturne où il explore les corps nus masculins. De nombreux modèles se prêtent à ce jeu fantasmatique, où l’objectif tend un miroir aux désirs et aux rêves de chacun. Depuis 2014 il travaille sur une série plus revendicative «Cartes du corps» pour soutenir le combat contre l’homophobie et le rejet et la condamnation des personnes lgbt.

 

Bruce Bellas ... Bruce Bellas (1909-1974) was an influential photographer of male nudes. Bellas was well known under the pseudonym Bruce of Los Angeles. Bellas was known to travel around the country, finding new models to photograph and also personally delivering nude photographs to customers, since they were liable to be seized by postal inspectors if sent through the mail.

 

Earl Forbes ... Earl Forbes, a vintage New York-based photographer, used a handheld Kodak Brownie camera to shoot physique photographs. Although Forbes photographed his models almost exclusively in the nude, most of his photographs were published only in physique magazines, and therefore, images without the painted posing strap are somewhat rare. He was active in 1940 years.