In search of sensuality

In search of sensuality

Paul Freeman is a man on a mission. The photographer, known for his nude portraits of celebrities and athletes including Ian Roberts and Ryan Kwanten, wants to reintroduce a more subtle, relaxed vision of male beauty to gay culture.

His newest photo book, Outback Brumby (the third in his Outback series, following the popular Bondi collection) is testament to that, filled as it is with images of sexy — but not overtly sexual — Australian men in various states of undress.

“I think this was my way of showing males in a very natural way, as opposed to how the plethora of coffee-table books at the moment seem to show men. It was my way of being a little bit more diverse,” Freeman (inset) explained to Sydney Star Observer.

Sitting in the lounge room of his humble Rose Bay flat, amidst bookshelves and tables stacked high with photography books, Freeman spoke animatedly about the aesthetic he searches for in his models.

“One of the things I’m very passionate about is capturing male beauty, but in an array of guys, rather in one image of maleness.

“Going to the outback and using that as a location and a theme, I get to show a rawer maleness. I go back to what I find intrinsically attractive about the male.”

The trouble, as Freeman sees it, is that in the current prevailing gay culture, “male beauty [is] being dumbed down to a shiny, steroided, tattooed, eight-packed party boy. It doesn’t really offer very much inspiration in terms of sexiness.”

For Freeman, the lure of the forbidden is much sexier than putting it all on show.

“Growing up in Tasmania and being a pretty self-aware homosexual from an early age, everything about masculinity and maleness was furtive glances and furtive appreciation.

“I think what’s different about other photobooks and gay culture nowadays is that it’s so overt and obvious — ‘here’s my hot body’.

“What I find sexy in masculinity are all the other things that are a bit more hidden. Gay culture seems to be appreciating those things less and less at the moment.”

To illustrate his point, he leafed through a new photo book from the mammoth Bruno Gmunder publishing house, scanning page after page of aggressive-looking porn stars, waxed, gym-pumped and covered in tatts, with cocks hard in every shot.

“It’s all just very overt,” Freeman sighed. “There’s something very forced about these pictures. They’re all smooth, shaved, hard — these aspects of porno culture seem to be infiltrating gay art so much.

“Maybe really obvious, blingy porn is the new art, and I’m just getting old!”

In print, Freeman’s words may sound a tad bitter, but sitting across from him, watching him rifle through dog-eared art and photography journals to give examples of what he’s talking about, it was clear he’s an artist with an intense passion for the beauty of the male.

“I think what society has always idolised as the epitome of male beauty is that boy/man knife-edge: when a boy becomes a man and has the strength and power of a warrior, but still has that boyish beauty to him. That’s what I often try to capture.”

He does acknowledge, however, that such artistic intentions may be lost on viewers when faced with an alluring image of a well-hung guy.

“I’ve seen people look through my books, and evaluate the photography solely according to ‘hot, hot, not, maybe, hot, who’s that?’ — and that’s it.

“I may have spent a couple of hours preparing the photograph to look a certain way, to evoke a neo-classical painting, and it’ll be completely missed.”

It’s for this reason, Freeman said, that he’s never been tempted to make his own photography more explicit.

“When a guy has an erection in a shot, he’s obviously in a sexual situation. The reality I’m trying to create in the Outback books is that these guys are changing, showering, or hanging out in some way where they’re disrobed. It’s more in a larrikin, cheeky way than a sexual way,” he said.

“I’m trying to create an Australian outback story, and if they had erections, it would destroy that story.”

While Freeman talks passionately about representing a more diverse standard of men, there’s no denying he has a certain ‘type’ — bronzed, hairy-chested, well endowed.

“Obviously, I’m photographing male beauty so I’m not capturing masculinity in all its forms, I’m just showing what I consider to be beautiful in men,” he conceded.

“But hopefully it’s a more realistic, sensual representation than that Tom of Finland, Ken doll, stiff masculinity which almost seems like a caricature.”

info: Outback Brumby is available now. Visit www.paulfreeman.com.au

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