Photographers - Part 68

 Charles Hovland

Charles Hovland, at left above with one of his models, is a bit different from other photographers that I have featured.  Hovland made his name as a gay porn photographer.

He was born in 1954 in a small town in Minnesota.  His parents were farmers active in the Lutheran church.  In college in Minneapolis he studied art and realized that he was gay.  After graduating, he moved to New York City and never looked back.  He got a job at the Guggenheim museum (in their bookstore) and started getting involved with Gay Pride and other gay causes.

In those days (the 1970s), before the Internet, if you answered a personal ad, it was by mail, and you needed to send a photo of yourself.  Charles starting taking naked photos of men who needed them to reply to personal ads.  In the 1980s, Charles expanded his photography business by offering for $12 to take photographs of men exposing their sexual fantasies to the camera.  This eventually resulted in 3,000 rolls of film showing men such as the one above.

One of his "personal ad" customers was an editor for a gay beefcake magazine, which led to Charles' main photography career: taking photos for magazines like Mandate, Honcho, Playguy, Torso, Inches, Heat, and Stallion.  From the 1980s through 2009 he photographed over 1700 models.

Those beefcake photos typically did not show fucking or sucking, but they often showed erections and might show men giving a handjob (above).

For these photos, Charles Hovland went by the byline "Chuck".  Here are some photos by Chuck.  Above, Jack Lawrence dressed as a fireman ...

Felix ...

"Stallion" ...

Ray with a milk carton ...

and Danny Hunter sucking himself.

The website for the Tom of Finland store offers various products featuring photos by Chuck.  For example, some products using the Danny Hunter photo include a beach towel (above) ...

a clock ...

and an area rug.

Charles Hovland is still alive.  A book of his beefcake photos called Hunks Twinks Thugs came out in 2022.