Customer Reviews

Around the Globe 2009

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is not exactly what I thought I would be getting seeing as this was a Bel Ami product. I purchased this book for my boyfriend who is a big fan of Bel Ami and their typical frisky and youthful models. We found the models in this book to be more stoic than being fun and interactive, more manly than boyish, more muscled than twinkish. The models are definitely beautiful as is the photography...but do not expect this book to be typical Bel Ami.

I agree with the assessment, on Amazon.com's Canadian sister site (Amazon.ca) by Amazon user Adam D. Dunn of this very beautiful, sweetly erotic collection of male nudes. However, I do feel that the collection (in b&w photography) by Howard Roffman, The Boys of Bel Ami, to which Dunn compares the book by Thoma, is at least equally fine (and for me, slightly superior, but, really, that is a matter of taste). Discussing my own summation of the merits of the collections of photography respectively by Benno Thoma and by Howard Roffman, makes (I hope) for useful comments to aid the buyer in choosing between these two most massive (so far) of nude male photography from Bel Ami studios.

Rare are those who look through Around the Globe, the book by Thoma, who will be indifferent to his photos of strikingly attractive young males. One of the nicest assets, among so many fine ones, of the colour photographs by Thoma, is the excellence of rear shots; Thoma knows supremely well how to photograph the buttocks of a young man to maximum allure! Nearly all of the photographs, however, are highly appealing, be they frontal, rear, or side shots, in the collections alike of the work of Thoma and Roffman.

The heart of my assessment, quoting myself, of Roffman's The Boys of Bel Ami is this: "The youthful men [whom Roffman photographed], in their teens and early twenties, very often in full frontal nudity, are exquisitely lithe, graceful, lovely, and agreeably or outright impressively well-hung, each memorably good-looking in his own way that varies from one to another, some 'lean and lanky' while others more sleekly and/or heavily muscled in a more forthrightly macho way, still others, by contrast, more endearingly pretty (sweetly juvenile, lovely, and tender), yet others just a bit raffish or lovably gangly rather than so classically handsome". Bel Ami's models working for Roffman, in all their glorious variety, make for an even wider range of the manifestations of male beauty, although there is a pleasing array of physical types, from one young male to another, in the book by Thoma as well.

"Whether one prefers Roffman's Boys of Bel Ami or Benno Thoma's equally copiously large Around the Globe (which features among Thoma's naked lads some of the same male models in Roffman's book) probably is largely a matter of taste, e.g. a preference for mostly colour photography (Thoma's) or entirely black-and-white camera work (Roffman's), or for the sensibility of one photographer over the other's; both books and the young men posing mostly nude therein, are consummately lovely examples of erotic photography at its best."

Few readers (i.e. viewers!) are likely to find the lads of either book uninteresting, in the way that Mr. Dunn seems to be so indifferent to the choice and photographic depiction of the young guys that Roffman delivered. If the buyer can afford it, he should obtain both books!

George Duroy, a Slovak native filmmaker, formed the company Bel Ami in 1993, capitalizing on the handsome youths from Bratislava, Prague, and Budapest to establish his reputation as a connoisseur of the young, robust, healthy, and sensuous male form. For this book AROUND THE GLOBE Duroy 'consigned' his famous models to art photographer Benno Thoma who traveled with these perfect specimens of anatomy to locations in Brasil, South Africa, Spain, and Greece - all places where the sun and the Mediterranean architecture and quality of light allowed Thoma to create some of the most beautiful images of color photography around!

Given that his models are at the pinnacle of health and youthful ardor, Thoma carefully selected settings that would emphasize their perfection of form. At times his backgrounds are the sun-drenched white walls and walkways that make the flesh tones jump off the page, while in other images he incorporates native colors in the manner of drapes, towels, gardens, indoor windows/furniture/blowing fans, rocky cliffs and beaches where he follows the antics of several models at sport and play or simply soaking in the brilliance of the sun. One aspect of Thoma's approach to the model is to create a sequence of images of the same model in the same location - a technique that allows the viewer to enjoy not only the subject matter but also the variations Thoma can create given the same elements to repeat.

These lads are clothed, partially clothed, and clothe-less and they are photographed with a sense of communication with the photographer that makes them seem totally at ease with the session and with their own bodies. There are moments of languid relaxation and moments of arousal, much as in the reality of response of men in the bloom of physical perfection suggests. This is as fine a collection of the Bel Ami lads in choice surroundings as is available, and once again the book is designed, printed and produced with the high quality we have come to expect from Bruno Gmünder Verlag. As Shakespeare wrote 'Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower.' But that bower may just be here in Benno Thoma's AROUND THE GLOBE. Grady Harp, November 10

I can't say enough about how beautiful the book is. The photography is,well the only word I can use,perfect. The men in the book are hand picked for their physical beauty and the photographer knows how to enhance their perfection. I love the size of this book, oversize and done to perfection. I want to thank Amazon for not only offering this book but also at a great discount price I could not find this price anywhere else. I have brought several books from Amazon since I received this one and will continue to buy from them. Their customer service is the best and their prices are are way below other online stores or bookstores, even here in New York.Thank You Amazon and keep up the good work

This book is exceptionally beautiful inside, but the title is a lie. Such deceit deserves every ounce of disapproval--at least in the opinion of anyone concerned about truth in labeling. If you buy this book because you particularly like the mix of people found "around the globe," you will be sorely disappointed. I have leafed through the book three times and have not spotted even a single person of color--no Asian, no Indian, no Middle Eastern, no African, no obviously Caribbean or other islander--nothing that wouldn't pass for American or Western European. Lots of blonds and light hair.

Let me be clear. I want this review to be "helpful" whether you take the news as good or bad, so I'm simply relating a fact: although the pictures are superbly beautiful, they are not of people from "around the globe" as the title suggests. It is my opinion that false advertising (even if the product is good) deserves the consumer's scorn--hence the reason for my single star.