Customer Reviews

100 Naked Girls

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hegre has an eye for a certain kind of beauty in women. Not all women's lives create it, it may be prettiness rather than beauty, and it lasts for only a short part of a life. Still, it's there, and Hegre has captured 100 different kinds of it.

Marketa, the cover model, sets the pattern: they're all young, slender, and very lovely. A few, like Tatiane and Lucy, don't match the European mold - very few, and I would have liked more of the variety they represent. Some, like Luba are very 'posed.' Others, like Olga and Lena or Sveta and Inga, show models in close groups, hinting at physcial affection between them. Natural looks predominate but some - like Lza - offer surprises. The majority, typified by Olga, Andrea, and Dina, convey the fun the woman seems to have in simply being herself.

This book is almost too much, though. The models are sweet, but I wouldn't want to eat only desserts all the time either. There are lots of other ways for a woman to look good - but Hegre has ignored them in favor of just this very conventional one. Well, it's an easy one to enjoy.

This is a lovely collection of very pretty young women. It's not overtly erotic, except maybe once or twice. Instead, it simply celebrates the charm and elegance that's native to these lovely models.

//wiredweird

The one-man-media-machine that is Petter Hegre is branching out here with the release of "100 Naked Girls". His previous works were focused on individual beauties. For example his most recent book focused exclusively on his wife Luba. But it was inevitable that, given the enormous depth of material he has been forced to come up with at his website, Hegre-Archives.com, Petter would eventually start to publish from that gargantuan body of work. And so we have "100 Naked Girls", the results of which, are absolutely stunning. This is more than a creme-de-la-creme collection of nudes by a single artist - this is an epic achievement, and is perhaps the greatest collection of "hits" since the Beatles released their Red and Blue albums. Each of these one-hundred girls is worthy of a book all to herself, and though our appetites for each are only whetted and not fully satiated, it is enough that we can move on to another, equally magnificent specimen of female perfection. At almost 200 pages, with each girl featured in "mini-chapters" sorted alphabetically by their name, this book is a bit exhausting, and is almost overwhelming. There are so many wonderful photographs of so many beautiful, young girls, that it's almost impossible to put down. So, my suggestion is ... don't! Savor every little detail ... no matter how long it takes. This one is worth it!

Norwegian photographer Petter Hegre has done an admirable job with this very different book of photos. It has 192 pages, the pictures are divided into mini-chapters for each model is listed alphabetically, & most of the photos are inside apartment settings. These pictures are of real women in realistic situations, poses, & environments.

The photographs are done to show the natural character of the model, & many are truly stunning in their natural sensuality. The women featured are generally unaltered, as in no touchups. He successfully attempts to take pictures from their best angles, he does not hide or cover moles, freckles, or anything else that is so often covered up in modern photography using models. These women are presented as they are, not by some unheard of perfectionist myth. I will deduct 1 star because Asian, Black, short, & overweight women were left out, & some of the portraits were too small to show the models at their best.

My review is based on the recent Amphoto Books hardcover edition of the Petter Hegré book "100 Naked Girls".

The size of the book is 210x270x20mm (w/h/t) which is the smallest suitable size for this kind of photo book, still giving area for the picture. Design by Weiss-Grafik & Buchgestaltung, Freiburg, Germany and printed in Singapore. Pages are bound and it will mechanically endure normal wear.

The pages are not numbered, which is very inconvenient and impractical (there are some 190 pages in all, with two to five photos per book opening). Nor are there any indexes or actual bibliography. The very, very, very light forewords are written by writer Clifford Thurlow from U.K.

The models, or pairs of models (or even more) are arranged alphabetically in the book. (from 001 Alexia to 100 Zalina) Each model is portrayed in one to four photos. The girls are very beautiful and that forms perhaps the single strength or substance of this work. The poses, or most thereof are sadly very typical of the commercial genre of professional erotic photography. Workshop pin-up wall calendars is what springs to mind. (and the title does not help)

Mr. Hegré is a young and very productive originally Scandinavian photographer, alas very commercial. I personally wish the curator, or the photographer himself could have picked the very exceptional photographic work out of the mass of photographs for this book. This is not the authors first book and probably not his last. On the other hand perhaps this book is directed more at the customers of the Hegré website erotic picture archives?

Be how it may, there are a few of the photos I'd like to creatively commend but can't as there are no page or picture numbers....

I had this book on order for a long time before in became available (I actually went to Amazon's UK arm to get it). It is of good quality, though one really shouldn't expect some profound artistic work. It is a popularised topic of interest now (the female nude). What Hegre does it to capture the 'Venus Naturalis', or as he calls it 'The New Nude', natural beauty without embellishments; photographic realism isn't really conducive to 'high art' in the traditional sense, and surrealist photography died out long ago.
The Profundity is in the simplicity, the justice is in the unadulterated gaze.
Having tried to sound sophisticated, it should be pointed out that this is more just like a catalogue of images; think of it as a 'sampler'. They are all gorgeous women, of whom Petter has a lot more photos on his website, as well as having a few books dedicated to individual Models. To my knowledge there is three out (not including the first wife's one which seems to be out of print) and another one coming out in a month or two (which is of my all-time favourite model!). But in any case, if you don't have any books of hegre's work, this is the best one to start with, and if you are a collector of his books (among other of his works) then this is a must for his collection. It won't be the best book of his career, but it is still better than most!

Do girls enjoy seeing beautiful naked girls? You bet we do, and few photographers as far as I can see find more beautiful girls or photograph them more beautifully. This is not a book to race through but a book to savour, honest, natural, totally real, Petter Hegre has taken the new nude to new limits of human endeavour. I can't wait to see the next one. Milly Belladulce

I was basically looking for a book with good looking women taking in a professional manner. I liked this book. although the subjects are not professional models, they looked good and the pictures are of high quality.

This is the difference between porn and art. This is Art photography; a tastefull display of beauty, in its purest form.

Hegre has really made a name for himself through the years, and I have to say that since I started finding his pictures, I developed certain respect for his work. Nevertheless, I gotta admit, this book doesn't particularly improve my opinion of his talent.

Now, the good parts. One of the things I have always admired of Mr. Hegre's work, is that he's one of the very few photographers I've seen that can shoot a picture "showing pink", and it looks really artistic (with a few exceptions) in contrast with the cheap "pink showing pictures" you find elsewhere. And his shots look amazingly sharp 99% of the time. And for the book itself, the quality of the paper, the printing and the binding is really good.

The bad, well, as many people have said before me, there's very little difference, if any at all, between this book's contents, and those find on his website, and others where he collaborates. Second, I expected much more from someone with his talent and experience. I think that any serious amateur photographer with the right equipment could have nailed those shots. Third, there is very little variety. Don't misunderstand me, this women, almost without exception, are so stunning that they take your breath away. But they look a lot alike.

I don't totally regret having bought it, but if I had seen it first, I probably wouldn't have.

Interesting piece of work, with Petter Hegre's quality. High quality printing and presentation. The only downside of the product, looks no different from the material from Hegre you can see in the Web for free.