Flesh Love. 80 Vacuum-Sealed Couples Photographed by Haruhiko Kawaguchi.

Haruhiko Kawaguchi, who goes by the name Photographer Hal, is a Tokyo photographer and artist whose project FLESH LOVE literally vacuum packs couples of all types in 100x150x74 cm plastic bags. The idea is to keep love fresh forever. Once the air is sucked out of the bag by a vacuum cleaner, Kawaguchi only has about 10-20 seconds to take his pictures. Any longer and he would risk causing harm to his subjects.



Thus far 80 couples, many of whom Kawaguchi met at nightclubs in Tokyo, have participated in the project.

"When you embrace your lover, sometimes you wish to melt right into them.
To realize this wish, I've been photographing couples in small, or even cramped spaces like motels and bathtubs.
As my work has become more and more intense, I've noticed that communication is indispensable.
This time, I reached the point of photographing couples in vacuum-sealed packs, on a set that I've constructed in my own kitchen. The lights are in the ceiling, so I just flip one switch and have everything ready.
I have a few different colored paper backgrounds, which I can leave rolled up in the corner until there's none left. This gives me 10 seconds to take the shot.
In this extremely limited time I can't release the shutter more than twice." -- (Excerpts from the author's postscript)

Kawaguchi says that his female subjects have reacted much better to the bizarre vacuum-packing process than his male subjects. Women have remained calm while the men have been prone to struggle for air and feel claustrophobic. In one case, a male even wet himself. The women's most common concern is they they look good. Vanity and incontinence aside, here's a look at 42 of the photos from FLESH LOVE:























"FLESH LOVE" is one of the most unique photograph projects in the world and received the 1st place award in The Art of Photography Show 2011 held in San Diego, USA. France's Photo and art magazine "AZART" featured it inside and on the cover of their March 2011 issue.

FLESH LOVE PRINTS :
You can purchase individual prints from this series here

FLRSH LOVE GALLERY BOOK:
Or a softcover photobook of the show with 72 images here

FLESH LOVE ITUNES APP
An application for iPad of "FLESH LOVE" is available on itunes as well.

Haruhiko Kawaguchi aka Photographer Hal

A special thanks to Jaci Lerner for bringing this to my attention!

Bodies We Want. All The Athletes In The Buff from the 2011 ESPN Body Issue.

Because Google Ad Sense has deemed this particular post in violation of their strict policies regarding nudity, it has to be viewed on our Tumblr site instead at :

https://iihih.tumblr.com/post/167475444394/bodies-we-want-all-the-athletes-in-the-buff-from

Thanks for your understanding.

Models As Sexy Greek Gods & Goddesses For The 2011 Pirelli Calendar

NOTE: This post has been altered since it was originally published to conform to Google Ad Sense's provisions.

Ordinarily I do an annual post on the most amazing and artful calendars for each new year, but this year snuck up on me so quickly, that other than the Lavazza 2011 calendar and recently, the 2011 Miss Tuning calendar, I didn't get a chance to share this wonderful example with you.

Berlin Photographer Kerstin zu Pan's Colorful Supervision Series

"SUPERVISION"
by berlin photographer kerstin zu pan


"Beauty in unusual circumstances comes easily to the camera of Kerstin zu Pan, one of Berlin's most original photographers. Her photos are moments amid stories - playful wild stories that leave the reviewer guessing. Her work is expressive, ebulliant, and strange. There is always more here than is apparent at first glance."
--Clayton Maxwell, Eyemazing 3/2007











Thanks so much to Kerstin for her permitting me to reproduce these photos.

Credits:
Concept & photography: Kerstin zu Pan
Wig & Hair: Acacio da Silva
Make-up & Lashes: Karla Neff
Model: Britta Thie / Viva

See her other wonderful works at her website as well as information about editions, 
commercial requests and bookings
 here.

Kerstin zu Pan Photography

Stunning & Sexy Silver C-Prints By Guido Argentini

above: Sandy Silver Cover, 1995

Photographer's Limited Editions is offering photographer Guido Argentini's stunning and sexy silver series c-prints (say that ten times fast) from his collectible book and series, SILVEREYE. The six available images shown below are limited to 3 editions each, measure a large 47" x 47" and cost approximately $9,000.00 USD a piece.


above: Sandy Silver Laying Down, 1995

above: Sandy Silver Butt, 1995

above: Sandy Silver Prayer 2, 1995

above: Giulia Silver 4, 2006

above: Sandy Silver Heart-Shaped, 1995

Buy any of the limited edition C-prints shown above here.

About the photographer:

Born in Florence, Italy Guido Argentini studied Medicine for three years at the university of Florence before turning to photography as a career. At 23 he decided to turn his passion into a profession and started to shoot fashion and beauty. Since 1990 he has lived in the USA, in Los Angeles.

His work has been published by some of the leading magazines in the world such as "Marie Claire", "Men'sHealth", "Panorama", "Playboy", "Vogue", "Max", "Maxim" and many others.



In 2003, Guido Argentini's first book, shown above,"SILVEREYE", presented an exquisite series of studio and landscape nudes. That work was a reflection of the artist's great personal passion for sculpture and dance.



above: Publisher Te Neues created several lovely calendars for 205 from the SILVEREYE series.

In his second book, "PRIVATE ROOMS", 2005, Mr. Argentini offers an entirely different type of personal journey, one where eroticism and beauty are clearly inseparable. Within these pages, we are invited to take a glimpse into a unique 'feminine universe'.

This second book is the result of ten years of photographs, all taken in the intimacy of closed rooms, ancient villas, modern apartments, many hotels, from the most elegant five-star locations enriched with luxurious velvets and four-posted beds to the most squalid insignificant hourly-rate motels furnished with cheap plastic chairs and worn-out wallpaper. A universe where all these rooms become the theaters of the artist's self-directed voyeuristic fantasies.



His latest book, "REFLECTIONS" was published in 2007. A vast collection of photographs of women looking at themselves in mirrors: a sort of unconscious research about the woman who studies herself, falls in love, and gets lost in her own image.



Check out or purchase several of Guido Argentini's Books and Calendars

Guido Argentini's site

Celebrating Hairy Men; A Beautiful Book And A Backlash To Waxed Men Everywhere

Hairy, Photographs by: Robert Greene


This latest book is categorized by powerHouse books as "Gay Interest/Nudity" but it's so much more than that. At a time when waxed chests and smooth bodies are all the rage (note my previous post on Gillette's manscaping site, Norelco's Bodygroom Manalogues and the Mangroomer), I am so pleased to see someone celebrating the masculinity of a hairy body. All hail the hirsute!

Not that I want a fur rug to spoon with, or that a hairy hiney turns me on, but because the natural beauty of a testosterone-laden male form is far preferable to me than that of a man who looks and feels like a dolphin- or a 12 year old. Or whose legs are smoother than mine. I even had some exes who were handsomely hirsute and went to the trouble to painfully wax themselves. Yuck.

That said, let me introduce you to the latest book of photographs by artist Robert Greene, Hairy which will be followed by a gallery of Hairy Hotties.

images from the book:



The following text is courtesy of powerHouse books:

Painterly rhythms have seeped their way into Robert Greene’s world of photography in Hairy, a collection of Greene’s images taken over many years, in many places, of many dogs, and many hairy men. An undercurrent of über-masculinity and its sexiness is revealed, yet not in the familiar form of muscular, hard-jawed, clean-cut youth. Instead, Greene celebrates a more restrained and naturalistic virility.

Greene’s photographic eye is full of adoration for his subjects and their environments. There is a very intimate, personal feeling here; one not posed, but observed and captured. Greene shifts from long-range portraiture, to close-up shots where specific textures, shapes, and tones become the subject of the image. This abstraction weaves a visual spell, such that even those without a predilection for hirsute men will be enthralled. The photographs provide the space for longing, imagination, and adventure. Hairy is an unusually quintessential book—portraying an incredibly focused and fleshed-out vision of a very beautiful, hairy world where man, dog, and nature swirl together.

Images from the book:



Hairy will be released in conjunction with an exhibition at Robert Miller Gallery in New York City. Pssst... if you pre-order it from amazon as shown below it will cost you less.


Hardcover, 9.25 x 12 inches, 96 pages, 85 tritone photographs
ISBN: 978-1-57687-527-8


About the artist/author:
Robert Greene was born in New York City in 1953. He attended Syracuse University, College of Visual and Performing Arts, before receiving his Bachelor of Industrial Design degree from Pratt Institute in 1976. Greene is both a fine-art photographer and painter, and is currently represented by Robert Miller Gallery in New York City. His painting was included in the 1987 Whitney Biennial, and his work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.


Be sure to see Robert's work at the Robert Miller Gallery online here.

See Robert Greene on Artnet here.

Some Hairy Hotties For You:

above: Clive Owen

above: Jon Hamm

above: Peter Saarsgard

above: English rugby star Ben Cohen

above: Paul Rudd

above: Matt Lauer

above: Simon Cowell

above: Sam Elliott

above: Alec Baldwin

above: Hugh Jackman

above: Sean Connery

above images of Shawn Christian courtesy of squarehippies.com

above: Tom Selleck

I'm not alone in my predilection for hairy men, there are tons of sites that feature hirsute men or focus on hairy chests:
Square Hippies has a great gallery of chests both hairy and smooth (A shirtless vault) and a Guess This Chest game.
Bearotic
The Hairy Chest Celebrity Pool on flickr
Hairy Chests of The Rich and Famous
The Return Of the Chest Hair (gallery) on Daily Beast.

and check this out...

above: the shirt reproduces his actual chest hair in a stretch fit t-shirt. The work, entitled “Finally Chest Hair” was created in 1997, but it was recently featured in an exhibition entitled “Vreemde Dingen” (Strange Things) at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

Amazon's Guide to Famous Hairy Chests