BeigeJournal

The Spirit of Lady Godiva, photos by Harvey Drouillard, edited by Paul Rapoport. Anecdote Productions, 2002.

Some 120 black-and-white photos of urban street scenes which include one or more nude people. The models practice undressing and dressing so that they can undress, get the photo, dress, and be gone before attracting too much attention, sometimes before anyone notices. The photos are generally filled with entirely oblivious clothed bystanders, though occasionally a few do notice what’s happening. Each photo’s facing page is text about the photo, often the story of taking the photo. There are, naturally, some interesting stories.

These are not, on the whole, carefully posed scenes. He’s working in the United States and even in the more tolerant cities there is plenty of pressure to get it over with quick, before trouble arrives. Sometimes there is a touch of camera shake as well. One can imagine the effort needed to accumulate so many good pictures under the circumstances.

There is an article about Harvey and this book in Nude And Natural volume 21 issue 1, Autumn 2001. As they note there, the photos offer a fascinating image of a world in which clothing is not important, though of course this is an illusion generated by freezing a moment in time and using Velcro shorts.

In the naturist way, the photos are unlike the many we see these days where you know the models are nude but you nonetheless can’t actually see any of the body parts that would normally be covered by clothes. Poses vary, but there are plenty with nothing obscuring anything.

The book is very nicely done, with high quality printing. The photos are beautiful, the comments delightful. If you like this sort of thing, I highly recommend it. If you don’t like this sort of thing, please don’t bother telling me about it.