Bob Mizer’s original conception for Athletic Model Guild was as a photographers’ cooperative, although little enough remains: I have only encountered one associated photographer (Harlan Helm, about whom Mizer wrote admiringly, and who participated in the very first AMG album).
There was another, though, one hiding in plain sight. Denny Denfield is often credited as a tagalong photographer, one covering the same shoots as Bob Mizer — the models sometimes naked rather than minimally dressed — but I have come across a couple of Denfield scenes with Mizer models, both of which appear in AMG catalogues.
The earlier one published is in Duke Cannon’s ZA13 catalogue. It is listed there as ZA 84.
The other, from the same session, appears in the first duals catalogue published as such. It is numbered ZF 67.
So the association was real, and at least two Denny Denfields were openly offered for sale (as AMG, but still!).
Mizer was generous when he published Physique Pictorial, as he showcased and promoted other physique photographers.
ReplyDeleteInteresting association with Denfield. Lloyd Denny Denfield (1918-1992) was based out of San Francisco and would photograph his models at Thornton Beach by Daly City and Stinson Beach in Marin County. Other times he traveled to the deserts of So Cal.
Denfield also corresponded with Bruce Bellas of LA, Douglas Juleff of Detroit and Lon Hanagan in New York. Denfield was a naturist and frequented the nude beaches near the Golden Gate Bridge where he recruited his models. At times he would invite models to his house in SF for photo shoots (when mother was away), and to his secluded party house in Marin where wild times were to be had.
Denfield is best known for his Kodachrome 3-D stereo-view slides taken with the then novel 3-D Stereo-Realist camera. It was Mizer who encouraged Denfield’s use of the format starting in 1954. Denfield admitted to taking thousands of Stereoviews of over 1500 men ! Though Denfield was never persecuted, he never sold his photos as physique photography was his personal hobby, he had his setbacks. In 1951, thieves made off with some of his equipment and best slides from the trunk of his car.
In 1965, he was beaten and robbed after a party. By the end of the 1960’s, Denfield’s heavy smoking, drinking habits and partying caught up with his health, and he began to isolate himself from colleagues, friends and models. The death of his dear mother made him leave the gay scene altogether. After his death in 1992, his vast archive was willed to a friend. That friend in turn died in 2004 and the photo archive of Denfield was broken up and sold.
It’s a shame that many of the physique photographers were still alive in the early 1990’s, and should have been interviewed at length by scholars of photography and gay history.
-Rj