Title: Naked happy Girls: new york undressed sexy private home innocent natural sunny erotic real & playful Author: Andrew Einhorn Publisher: Goliath Publish Date: 2003 Pages: 368 Genres:: Straight Photography,Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

The world of erotic photography tends to feature nameless, coolly bored models in slick outfits and resolutely posed positions, offering up sexual acrobatics and fetishistic fantasy that is almost more clinical than it is sensual.

But Andrew Einhorn’s models aren’t like this at all. In fact, they’re not even models. Instead, they’re living, breathing, laughing (and yes, both naked and happy) women, some of whom have known and/or worked with the photojournalist in the past, and some who have randomly encountered him—in a bar or on a city street—and been immediately intrigued by the thought of baring it all for the camera. In the few short sentences before each woman’s shoot, we learn that they are publicists...trumpeters...art history majors...artists more than happy to contribute to another’s pursuit of art.

We also learn that they like eating apples, or have two kittens, or chain smoke, and this adds a sense of humanity to the black and white photos already teeming with life and cheerful intimacy.

The majority of Einhorn’s subjects are photographed in their New York City apartments, lolling about couches, leaning out windows that lead to fire escapes, cuddling with their cats. They’re at ease in their environments and, because of this, it seems that the subjects lead the camera, with photographer as mere passive observer.

Though this is deceiving because—partly in the process of building rapport and partly in the process of just having fun—Einhorn often gets naked with his subjects, smokes pot with them, and generally makes himself a part of the experience. Whether or not this is kosher is thrown aside in the interest of making good art.

More than a piece of eroticism, Naked happy Girls is a conversation, circling around sensuality, body acceptance, the artist/subject relationship, an individual’s exhibitionistic limits...

More than I find myself admiring the way Einhorn captures a shot or manipulates light or frames a subject, I find myself admiring the subjects themselves, for their bravery and their confidence and their willingness to lay bare their every dimple and blemish. I read their short bios and draw comparisons between them and myself and wonder if I should request my own nude photo shoot.

Then the doubts crowd in. I imagine myself being more awkward than sexy. I notice that there are no plus-size women in these pages. I observe that all of the women in this book are beautiful, and I cannot decide whether this beauty exists because of their brazenness or because of a narrowness of representation due to the failings of the photographer.

Still, my cynicism cannot refute the fact that, at my core, I find this thick little tome a moving testament to self-love.