Elska, a project dedicated to sharing the bodies and voices of LGBTQ communities around the world, has put the spotlight on Melbourne for its latest edition.
Inside, readers can get to know a selection of everyday queer men from Australia’s most liberal metropolis via a combination of intimate photography and personal storytelling.
Elska editor and chief photographer Liam Campbell said Elska Melbourne is his third Australian adventure, following previous issues in Perth and Sydney.
“Even though those other Aussie editions proved popular, we also got a lot of complaints from people asking why we didn’t shoot Melbourne instead,” Campbell said.
“At first I thought such messages came from a place of arrogance, but after being told over and over that Melbourne is Australia’s queerest, most liberal, and artsy city, I knew we had to see it for ourselves.
“From the moment I arrived in Melbourne, I knew they were right.”
Inside ‘Elska Melbourne’ readers are introduced to sixteen ordinary men from the local LGBTQ community.
The men were photographed in their city and in their homes, revealing a diverse bunch of beautiful bodies while each subject also wrote a story to go with their photographs, enabling readers to get to know them at an even more personal level.
“Elska’s photographic concept has always been to shoot people with spontaneity and without plans or expectations, which results in a combination of indoor and outdoor pics as well as clothed and unclothed photos.
“Everything is up to each subject, but Melbourne marks the first time in our nine-year history that everyone we met opted to bare all for their photos. That makes Elska Melbourne, our forty-eighth issue, the first to be all naked! And I think that proves how queer, liberal and arty this place is.”
Some of the stories you’ll read in this edition include: John H’s account of discovering gay liberation in the early 1970s; Luke B’s remembering of growing up gay in rural Australia and discovering that he wasn’t actually ‘the only gay in the village’; Zhi Z’s confession about using travel to understand more about himself and where he belongs in this world; and Jayke F’s description of a day at the nude beach, where he confronts his insecurities and through the visibility of diverse bodies finds a path to appreciating his own body.
‘Elska Melbourne’ is 180 pages and available for order online from the Elska website here and from a select group of shops worldwide.
Last Updated on Sep 13, 2024
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