Title: Photography for Perverts Author: Charles Gatewood Publisher: Greenery Press Publish Date: 2003 Pages: 199 Genres:: LGBT Photography, Erotic Art Reviewer: Chris R. Morgan

Rating:

Everyone thinks it, so why don't I address it. The cubicle is a cold and heartless little center for all of us, but at times daydreams slip in for that much-needed midday euphoria. Why can't there be a book for me? I like me, why doesn't the publishing world like me? Or for that matter, the art world? Fear not, loathsome white-collar toiler; there is a book for you—well, for your most base and impure desires but let's not split hairs. What you're about to find out is that there's a tome out there that will guide you through all that's required in order to make a fine hobby or even a formidable DIY career in hypersexual photography. 

Charles Gatewood is perhaps the best authority to write such a book for he is a photographer—as his prestigious awards indicates—and a pervert—as his work with William S. Burroughs and overall reputation indicate. From the start, he stresses that this book is all-inclusive: bi, gay, straight or "other" are simply categories. They all strip down to similar fantasies anyway.  Though all-inclusive is a bit misleading as this book is for all those who are bi, gay, straight and into kink, bondage and liberal use of strap-ons. Photography for Perverts serves as a straightforward guide to all the practical matters of photography (obtaining models, technique, getting locations, legal matters, censorship) and as a springboard for the sexual imagination, which has little to no limits. Much of the material, though, takes great tolerance with the varying ratios of sexuality and aggression from photo to photo yet it's still safe territory. It's best for a beginner or a curious artist to delve in the established subversive before s/he can skyrocket into the seasoned transgressive.

A majority of the book's photos are, not surprisingly, Gatewood’s. He's a rare creative mind of impressive versatility, his photos vary in basic aesthetic and theme, shifting in lens focus, deviation type, orientation type, spontaneity, among other things.  He's much like Terry Richardson but not so glammed up. Gatewood's prose is straightforward, humorous and hardly stuffy or intimidating. It's a combination of personal background, storytelling and sound advice. To know him would make for an excellent mentorship, but he's humble enough to know that maybe taking the time to write a book about the art he loves for the many people who want his help but don't know where to start is just as valuable. That means you, too.