Australian Penthouse

What drives you to continue taking nude photographs of women?
I have had a fascination with women for a long time, so I try to put my admiration for them into my art. And I love controlling that. It’s not like a wedding or a concert; I start from nothing and I get ‘this girl’ and ‘a place’, and she becomes my marionette. I pose her and make her do things that I want her to so I can come up with a cool, erotic photo that really captures a moment.

What do you look for in a model?
Her face—well, her eyes, actually, since they are the nipples of the face and, of course, nice feet. I actually look at their feet first, then pan up to the eyes. I don’t know what it is with feet. It’s my thing. When a woman goes to reach for something in bare feet, that’s the sexiest pose. But I love everything about a woman.  The dimples in the small of her back, the tiny blonde hairs on her thighs that light up when the sun hits them…I can go on and on.

How have you found working with the girls—their personalities—over the years?
I’ve been very fortunate; generally, the girls are fun to work with. I think I could count on one hand the number of girls who’ve given me a hard time. The only real stereotype concerns their lateness.

Where do you find beautiful nude models?
Finding the girls is easy. I get emails from agents daily. It’s the locations that I have a hard time finding. There’s a lot of scouting involved. I like [shooting] outside and in hotels—especially little crappy hotels. I don’t like studios.

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What makes a good nude photographer?
The more unique and creative you allow a photographer to be, the better it is for the magazine. I was doing crazy, off-the-wall stuff. The crazier it got, the more Bob liked it. It was the sexual revolution and Penthouse was the mother ship of that era. I’m like a miner; every girl has some precious stuff in her, and I have to find it.

Do you have a particular speciality?
Bob always asked for me when he had a special ‘sex scandal’ girl to shoot. I shot Gennifer Flowers at the beginning of Clinton’s presidency [Flowers allegedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas].

Shooting Jennifer was like dealing with Mae West, she had a very earthy sense of humour and a classic face. She said Clinton had a little dick, he was a lazy fuck, but he gave great head. It was interesting getting this first-hand information about our President.

What are your thoughts on the Internet?
The great bonus of the Internet is that you’re constantly in touch with your audience. It’s rewarding to see guys who are receptive about your work—to know it isn’t just a bunch of yobbos out there wanking.

A good photograph or video must be hot and it’s got to be sexy…but for him to look at it again and again, it has to have merit on another level. The guys who are coming up now are mainly shooting digital for the Internet.

They don’t know anything about film and what it does, film has become a dinosaur. The stuff I do, in that sense, may be a dying art.

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Who did you work for in the early days?
I was shooting for the Sun newspaper, Men Only and Penthouse. Playboy spotted one of my models, Lillian Muller, and flew us both to the US. Needless to say, Playboy didn’t want me; they wanted Lillian. They told me that shooting nudes and food were the hardest things in the business. “Oh dear,” I told them, “in that case, I’ll be forced to sell my pics to Penthouse.”

What’s your best professional attribute?
My greatest attribute is my dancing! I dance with the girls, make them laugh, get them to relax, and then work them to death. Cropping and framing of shots is important, and lighting and make-up is what makes it all happen.

Have you any advice for people who are looking to get into the industry?
My advice to wannabe photographers is: find the girl! We’re only as good as the girl!

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Why shoot nudes?
My first love was colour nature photography, but I was always very girl-crazy. It slowly became more obvious that I would start shooting girls.

What about Penthouse? Were you a part of the Guccione clique?
Yeah, I was totally a part of the clique. I was pretty young when I started doing stuff with Penthouse. I think that they were in a place where they needed some fresh, creative blood. Somebody called and to+ld me I should start submitting to them. I think it was really good timing. Bob needed somebody new and young. We had a great relationship.

What’s kept you shooting over the years?
Easy: I love photography. I love it like a painter loves paint. It’s the only way I truly express myself. When I’m shooting a girl and things are clicking, I think I’m expressing myself as a creative being as well as I can.

And I love the digital revolution; it’s liberated me, and allowed me to be more complete as an artist. When I do shoot on film, it feels like riding a donkey to work instead of driving a Mercedes.

What do you take pride in?

I take pride in quality. And treating my staff and models with dignity; 95 per cent of photographers today don’t do it for a love of photography or art. I don’t think it’s for a love of beautiful women, either. They do it for money. Money, money, money.

Have the models changed over the years?
I don’t think they’ve changed much. I think they’re more willing to do hardcore these days because the Internet has driven everything that way.

There are fewer good softcore girls now. Five, seven years ago, there was an amazing influx of Eastern European women who were mind-blowing in terms of beauty and attitude. But now the US government has laws that don’t allow them to come here.

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One day, the art director of Penthouse called me after one of their photographers got sick, and I took over as a favour. For 13 years, I travelled all over the world—any country, anything I wanted. All I had to do was get approval for the girl. It was the best years of my life.

What style of photographer are you?
I’ve put my life in danger many, many times in order to get the right picture, so in that way I’m dedicated. I’m an outdoors photographer. I want to rough it, and to rock it up more than usual.

There are two kinds of photographers: ones who take pictures and ones who make pictures. I’m a photographer who makes pictures. Everything I do is preconceived. I think about what I do. I plan it, I get the props, I drag them all over the world…in order to get the shot.

There needs to be a story—an element of danger, an element of humour, something exciting and original—instead of a girl sitting on a bed sticking her fingers in her pussy.

What do you think of magazines today?
I feel that if somebody would come out right now and change the look of the magazines, and grow some balls, people will go to the stands and buy them. There’s no question about it.

So what’s the problem, specifically?
A major problem is that [publishers] are scared of taking risks nowadays—taking chances on something unexpected—because they’re afraid of how it might affect circulation and sales.

I was chatting with Bob Guccione once, and he asked me to shoot a girl-girl pictorial. Originally, I said “no”, that I’d pass out from nerves, and Bob said: “Mark my words, in 10 years it won’t be something people bother talking about”. I learned that it’s a lot easier to shoot two girls than one!

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