Photographers - Part 94

Eugène Durieu

Jean Louis Marie Eugène Durieu (1800-1874) was a very early French photographer.  He had a career as a civil servant, rising through the ranks until he was dismissed and forced into retirement in 1850 for reasons that are unclear.  

Meanwhile, he had become interested in the new technology of photography.  The daguerrotype was first publicly demonstrated in 1839.  Durieu may have been taking daguerrotypes as early as 1842.

Durieu became friends with the artist Eugène Delacroix, and together in the 1850s they experimented with Durieu taking photographs and Delacroix making art from them.  Durieu was particularly interested in nudes, both male and female, which provided Delacroix with suitably artistic subjects.  Above is an undated Durieu photo of a nude man with a pole.

Here is an undated Durieu photo of a sitting nude man.

And above we see a drawing by Delacroix where the figures at the center and right are clearly based on the previous two photos by Durieu.  The figure at left probably was, too; but I couldn't find the corresponding photo.

Here's a nude man resting on a leopard skin c. 1854.

And a side view of another man on the leopard skin, c. 1854.

A nude man that Durieu presumably photographed for Delacroix, c. 1855.

And what looks like the same man holding a different pole, c. 1855.

Durieu's photos are very old, so naturally they are not all in prime condition, but I think the photo above, labeled Male Nude Studies 1853-54, is still in remarkably good shape.

Calendars - Part 95

Naked Men of Color

Today we look at the 2021 Naked Men of Color calendar produced by Concharts.

It was printed in magazine format, with each date page facing a photo page.  This calendar had none of the prudishness about showing the penis common to many nude calendars, as you can see in January, above.  But note that the the same photo on the cover is missing the penis.  Presumably they did that so the calendar could be displayed for sale in public as a closed magazine.

But once you open the calendar, nothing is hidden.  Here's February.

There are rear views as well.  March.

April.

May.

June.

We end with July, which is as far as my source went.

Protests - Part 94

Airport Protests

Today we look at naked protests in airports.  In 2012, John Brennan stripped naked at Portland International Airport, above, in protest against what he saw as invasive measures by airport security screeners.  He was arrested and taken to court, but the judge found him not guilty, ruling that his act was one of protest, not indecent exposure as defined in Oregon law, and therefore it was protected free speech.

In 2011, three environmentalists (left to right: Liz Snook, Rosa Van Kesteren, and Paul Wilkinson) stripped at the airport in Birmingham, England, protesting the UK's first commercial flight partially fueled by recycled vegetable oil.  The three said that Thomson Airways' claim that biofuels are green was "bare faced cheek".

One of the two engines on the Thomson flight was powered with a 50/50 mix of conventional jet fuel and compounds extracted from vegetable oil that were brought from a refinery in Louisiana, 5000 miles away.  The protesters said that sending the extracted compounds 5000 miles caused far more environmental impact than just using regular jet fuel for the "green" flight would have done.

Note to protesters: if you're going to paint a slogan on your naked body, check your spelling.  The company was Thomson, not Thompson.

In 2015, Georgy Myakinkin, an airport worker at Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg, Russia, had left his keys at work.  When he went back to get them, he said security guards stopped him "unnecessarily" and said he had to remove his belt.  He removed his belt and everything else except his socks.

Someone took a video of him going through security naked.  It was blurred to hide his penis, but you can see it in a few frames (above).

Also in 2015, a traveler at Charlotte International Airport in North Carolina became angry when his US Airways flight to Jamaica was overbooked.  He hollered at the lady at the US Airways desk, then took off his clothes.  Police led him away, but they did not press charges.

We end with a couple of men who were naked in airports, though not to protest.  In 2016, Eric Cherry waited naked in line to buy a ticket at the Nashville airport, above.  He was arrested for indecent exposure.

And this man walked around naked at the Dallas Fort Worth airport in 2023 in the American Airlines terminal.  He was apprehended by airport security and taken for a mental health evaluation.

Ivy League Posture Photos - Part 73

Ivy League Posture Photos

Yale started taking nude photos of incoming freshmen in 1919 as part of a program to detect and correct posture problems.  The Yale photos have erroneously been associated with William Sheldon, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Nazi-like eugenic theories who used Harvard nude posture photos to illustrate his theory of somatypes.  The Yale program predates Sheldon, and, as far as I can tell, the Yale photos were never connected to Sheldon's work.

Here are posture photos of nine more Yale students that I had the opportunity to acquire.

Yale freshman G. A. on October 12, 1954.

In 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to photograph the front, rear, side and top view.

Yale freshman Alfred Nash Beadleston III on October 12, 1954.

Note the strange pins stuck to each student's back and chest.  The pins were stuck on at specific points for later posture analysis.

Yale freshman P. B. on October 13, 1954.

Supposedly, by examining the angles formed by connecting the points where the pins touched the body, certain posture problems could be detected.

Yale freshman Leonard Louis Levy on October 3, 1940.

Photos taken before the fall of 1952 show only a side view.

Yale freshman Ralph Allen Hepler on October 1, 1940.

If posture problems were detected, the student had to attend remedial posture sessions, and a second posture photo was taken.

Yale freshman Thomas Francis Jackson on December 2, 1940.

Freshmen were told to report to Yale's Payne Whitney Gymnasium, and once there, they were told to strip.

Yale freshman R. S. on December 2, 1940.

The photography and analysis of the photos was conducted by the staff of the gymnasium.

Yale freshman William Lockhart Wallace on November 29, 1940.

Nobody outside the gymnasium staff saw the photos.  The photos were not published for other students to see.

Yale freshman Lewis Williams Douglas Jr. on July 17, 1942.

The posture photo program was discontinued in the 1960s, and later, most of the photos were burned.  However, some of the photos escaped burning, including the photos that I have been showing in this series.

*          *          *

Note: some of my followers consider these photos an invasion of privacy for the students.  To protect the privacy of the students, I redact the names of students who may still be alive.  I only publish the names of students who have died.  Legally, the right to privacy does not extend beyond death, i.e. it does not extend to spouses and relatives of the deceased person.

I consider these photos to be a historical record of the time.  Almost all of the Ivy League posture photos were burned when their existence became widely known.  In my opinion, that was akin to book-burning of books that someone claimed were obscene.  These photos are not obscene.  They should be celebrated, not hidden away.

Ads - Part 94

Topper Sneakers

This commercial for Topper sneakers ran in Argentina in 1995, showing two tennis players wearing nothing but Topper tennis shoes.

Aside from shoes and socks, they were completely nude.

Another revealing screen shot.

And a rear view.

Weighing In - Part 94

 Antonio Escalante

Antonio Escalante, born in 1985, is a Mexican professional boxer.  Above, he weighs in for a fight with Roberto Marroquin in Oklahoma in 2013.    The guy holding the modesty cloth lowers it, allowing us to catch a glimpse.

The glimpse in the video is brief, so I captured it in this gif.

Escalante lost that fight, but his overall record is 29 wins, 11 losses.

Hiking - Part 94

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