Male Nudes (Passionate Pursuits S.) [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Philippe Castetbon (Author)

Book Description

Series: Passionate Pursuits S. | Publication Date: October 25, 2005

They are men with God-like bodies but men with attitude too. They come from the four corners of the Earth: from the Sahara to Cuba, from the Basque country to the inner cities of North America. Acrobats, athletes, dancers, boxers, Buddhists, and cooks. Some sport tattoos, others scars, some have their heads shaven, others wear their hair long. Each supremely confident, each proud of his physique, each aware of the impact of his look. Beautiful, yet perfectly imperfect....

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Fitway Publishing (October 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 2752801610
• ISBN-13: 978-2752801616
• Product Dimensions: 14.3 x 9.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,976,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely not candy for the eye, October 24, 2006

By 

Sir Nigel Irvine (London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Male Nudes (Passionate Pursuits S.) (Hardcover)

If you are interested in nude photography and nude males in general then this book may be something for you!

If you prefer to look at beautiful naked males then do not buy this book!

Of course taste is different from person to person but using a general guide line I would say the beauty of the models is ranging from average to below average with a few exceptions.

There are around 90 pictures in the book. Around 40 of those pictures are just pictures of faces. I still fail to see how a picture of just a face can be considered a "nude" picture.

Of all the pictures in the book, none of them have complete frontal nudity! Yes, none! So there are no pictures in the book where one can see genitals of the models.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sweet Concoction of the Visual and Verbal, July 25, 2006

By 

rustcell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Male Nudes (Passionate Pursuits S.) (Hardcover)

Philippe Castetbon and Francois Rousseau's "Male Nudes" was a pleasant discovery when I visited my favorite Chicago bookshop, Unabridged Books. At full price though, I had to go to Amazon.

There's a flood of photography books currently in the market and most of the ones loosely categorized under the `male photography' banner are, unfortunately, pretty bad. They're either too pretentious or lacking in taste. Some of the best in this group include "Fun?Game" by Lalli, "Dieux du Stade" also by Rousseau, "Just Between Us" by Gorman, "Chop Suey Club" by Weber, and "Summer Souvenirs" by Haak. The following titles not only are superlative but also veer away from the typically Eurocentric male photo book by focusing on or giving equal time to Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern, and/or African male bodies: "Torero" by Afanador, "Pierre et Gilles: The Complete Works" by Marcade, et al., "Body & Soul" and "More Body, More Soul" by Thomas, "Midnight" by Gottfried (a photo essay with a lone male subject dealing with mental illness), and the particularly exceptional "Athlete" by Schatz.

"Male Nudes" is the latest addition to this short list. Rousseau is known in the States for photographing the Dieux du Stade series (horribly called "Locker Room Nudes" locally). These 2 books and 1 other, "Prince of Tides", solidify his status for me as the most interesting photographer of the male form at the moment. (He has another book, "Amor Causa", which I have yet to see.) Rousseau always manages to successfully tiptoe the line between eroticism and pornography. The mood is more sensual than sexual. You get hints and suggestions rather than sensory overload. His subject choices are a fascinating group; whereas Bruce Weber's are typically middle of the road white, New York Italian sometimes, Rousseau's are usually of Middle Eastern or African descent, European by citizenship, in addition to the Caucasian staple. (Rousseau himself is just about as attractive as his subjects.)

This book bares these men's bodies, a couple of full frontal images included, and offers a glimpse of their souls, expressing snippets of how they feel about themselves, their lives, their homes, their families, their bodies, their work, their ethnicities, etc. They are dancers, acrobats, models, Cuban, Algerian, Mexican, Belgian, French, etc. Those who are used to straight out photography of the male body might be put off but I think it's a welcome change, a smarter, more poetic angle on the usual. "Male Nudes" has the most beautiful group of subjects I've seen in any book. Lazaro, the brown and amazingly beautiful Cuban dancer aching for his motherland, and Luchino, the part-Indonesian model named after the Italian film icon, are some of the standouts.

"Male Nudes" is a sweet concoction of the verbal and the visual. It's the creation of an able writer and photographer and it shows.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intimate meditation on the male nude, July 2, 2006

By 

Andre Deloach "[e-mail]" (Long Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Male Nudes (Passionate Pursuits S.) (Hardcover)

If you are interested in appreciating the bodies of a wide variety of men in various states of undress AND glimpsing the respective spirits of these same men, through their own words, then this book is for you! As a photographer of male nudes and men in general, I found this book to be an elegantly intimate meditation on the male nude, especially if "nude" means revealing oneself physically and inwardly. With the joining of Rousseau's cystalline photography with Castetbon's effortless text, I found myself enjoying a greater sense of erotic and spiritual closeness with each of the the models. Bravo to Francois and Phillippe! This book will be prized by me forever.