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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A straight look at gays: A photo album of just plain folks., June 8, 1997
By A Customer
As reviewed by Michael O'Sullivan , staff writer for: "The Washington Post," Thursday, February 13, 1997:
Two By Two By Gettings -
A photo Album Of Just Plain Folks
There is nothing special about the plain and handsome pictures in "Couples," a book of photographic portraits by John Gettings. Published in November by the University Press of New England, the book is a collection of grainless black-and-white images of people embracing. The subjects are not models or celebrities. Fat and skinny, old and young, they stand against a dark backdrop and look at the camera, or sometimes deep into their lovers' eyes.
What is extraordinary is just how ordinary these portraits of togetherness are. Because for many of the gay men and lesbians in the book, even the smallest public expression of affection has so often been taboo.
Photographer John Gettings grew up in Annandale and now divides his time among New York, Miami, Europe and Washington. He says the idea for the book hit him a few years back while engaged in an activity that most people take for granted. "At the time, I was living with my girlfriend in Milan and we had been together seven years. You know how you naturally, almost unconsciously hold hands while crossing the street? Well, my friend Juan Carlos was walking with us that day and it suddenly occurred to me that I had never seen him hold his boyfriend's hand in public. I thought 'Why can't they express themselves with the simplest gesture?'"
A tone of astonishment creeps into his voice as he considers his own cultural myopia. "I mean, I'm a fashion photographer and I had never really thought about it." While he acknowledges that there are certain places "like Dupont Circle and the Wet Village where it's okay to walk down the street and hold hands" he still believes that, for the most part, there are many more places "where a little thing like that is denied to them."
"I always thought I was pretty sympathetic to gay issues," Gettings says, explaining the gradual evolution of his thinking. "It just sort of dawned on me that it wasn't really fair. And I thought I had to do something."
A year later when he had moved to New York he thought to himself, with naïve enthusiasm, "Why not take pictures of the straightest looking people to try and counter the stereotypes? If an article [about gays] comes out in Newsweek they always take pictures of drag queens, but it's not correct." Then a photographer friend pointed out to him how his idea was just as narrow a view as the biased images he was trying to fight.
"He had been documenting the porn industry and he said to me, `John, do not limit yourself by shooting only one aspect of the gay community. Don't just take pictures of what your idea of a gay person is.'"
In 1995, Gettings got permission from the city to set up a miniature outdoor studio in Central Park during a rally of a half-million people at the annual Gay Pride Week. He then distributed handbills in search of "couples for a book project," sat back and waited.
One hundred twenty four couples showed up. "I shot anybody that came and stood in front of me from morning until night." Eighty pairs ultimately made it into the book. "I had to edit it down for technical reasons," he explains. "Some of them just didn't turn out."
The book, Gettings says is a cross section of "anybody and everybody." The only criterion he insisted on was "that they be a couple, whether they were together for just that weekend or for 27 years. I just said, `Be how you want to be.' And when I thought the moment was right, I clicked."
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