Customer Reviews

Shooting Sex: The Definitive Guide to Undressing Beautiful Strangers

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Bob Carlos Clarke was struck by a train and died on March 25th, 2006. The accident took place at the White Hart Lane level-crossing near Barnes in South West London. Clarke is survived by his second wife Lindsey and their daughter Scarlett. Bob is buried at the Brompton Cemetery in London, where several of his most famous photographs from his book "The Dark Summer" were taken. In the Foreword: " In the city they form an oases of silence and seclusion, and their shadowy monuments are full of form and texture. Graveyards exude a strange combination of peace and tension. The mood is unpredictable: they may be threatening in sunlight or tranquil under thunderous sky. Immortalising a split second of beautiful, transitory youth holds a special irony in such a place."

Bob Carlose Clarke

24th June 1950 - 25th March 2006

J.Waddell

Canada

Shooting Sex is not about photographing carnal mischief (though there is some of that), but is instead a revealing look into the life and times and mind of one of our generation's most fascinating photographers. At 13 x 11" it is a huge and polished production packed with electrifying imagery from throughout Clarke's career. It includes numerous personal shots from behind-the-scenes of his most notorious career. But as awesome as this is, it is Clarke's writing that is so thoroughly engaging. It is utterly revealing and written in his own personal, provocative, and candid manner. Far from being a dry expose on the life and times of a one who's shot a few celebrities in the nude, this is one of the most interesting forays into the psyche of a modern artist ever published. Shooting Sex is a more than a printed archive of a photographer's life work, it's an autobiographical, picture-saturated, first-hand artistic manifesto.

As other reviewers have noted, this is so much more than a retrospective collection of the author's photographs. The gorgeous, mostly full-page photos are accompanied by a mixture of autobiographical, anecdotal and advisory writings, which themselves contain many memorable quotations and insights. His descriptions of his working and sexual relationships with his models are entertaining, and, while unapologetically male, never come across as macho or conceited. I was a student in London when Carlos Clarke was exhibiting his work in galleries there, so this book evoked many rich memories of the tragi-comic day-to-day contrasts of London life. Even his photojournalistic subjects reveal an erotic sensitivity: the candid images of lust-crazed English teenagers groping and snogging each other on a filthy floor must surely bring back bittersweet memories for many!