The advent of inexpensive Polaroid photography in the 1960's made the small scale distribution of male nudes and porn less risky, especially for amateurs with no access to a photo lab. As you will see, some of the models were still not keen on showing their faces, but we can't always be sure if that was the intent, or if it was just bad photography and composition. This is an ambiguous example.
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ReplyDeleteI was wondering if these Polaroids were one of a kind or if they were somehow duplicated. Was there a market for Polaroids at one time, for example, some guys made them and sold them? Or where these from a private collection which later found their way onto the market.
ReplyDeleteGood questions. While I can't say with certainty that Polaroids were never sold, they were not a very economical proposition compared to mass produced photos or printed magazines. My guess is that most of those seen here were part of a private collection. One interesting case of commercialization of Polaroids was the publication of a book by Tom Bianchi, a gay man who published his collection of Fire Island Polaroids years after he took them. I have featured his work here, and you can see it by clicking on the Tom Bianchi label in the list at the right side of this page.
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