Most of George Platt Lynes' models were young men from his circle of gay friends in New York in the period of about 1936 until his death in 1955.  Sometimes, as with this beautiful image, I look into their eyes and think of what it must have meant to live as a gay man in those times.  It's natural to think first of the dangers and limitations that leading almost totally closeted lives must have meant.  But on the other hand, I suspect they had a lot of the same hopes, loves, desires, and fears that we do today.  We've come a long way politically and socially, but we are still what we've always been, men.