Elska, a project dedicated to sharing the bodies and voices of LGBTQ communities around the world, has put the spotlight on Melbourne for its latest edition. Inside, readers can get to know a selection of everyday queer men from Australia’s most liberal metropolis via a combination of intimate photography and personal storytelling.
“Elska Melbourne is our third Australian adventure, following previous issues made in Perth and Sydney.” says Elska editor and chief photographer Liam Campbell. “Even though those other Aussie editions proved popular, we also got a lot of complaints from people asking why we didn’t shoot Melbourne instead. At first I thought such messages came from a place of arrogance, but after being told over and over that Melbourne is Australia’s queerest, most liberal, and artsy city, I knew we had to see it for ourselves.
“From the moment I arrived in Melbourne I knew they were right,” continues Liam. “Elska’s photographic concept has always been to shoot people with spontaneity and without plans or expectations, which results in a combination of indoor and outdoor pics as well as clothed and unclothed photos…
“Everything is up to each subject, but Melbourne marks the first time in our nine-year history that everyone we met opted to bare all for their photos. That makes Elska Melbourne, our forty-eighth issue, the first to be all naked! And I think that proves how queer, liberal and arty this place is.”
Inside Elska Melbourne and the companion zine Elska Ekstra Melbourne, readers are introduced to sixteen ordinary men from the local LGBTQ+ community. Each was photographed in their city and in their homes, revealing a diverse bunch of beautiful bodies. Each subject also wrote a story to go with their photographs, enabling readers to get to know them at an even more personal level.
Some of the stories you’ll read here include: John H‘s account of discovering gay liberation in the early 1970s; Luke B‘s remembering of growing up gay in rural Australia and discovering that he wasn’t actually ‘the only gay in the village’; Zhi Z‘s confession about using travel to understand more about himself and where he belongs in this world; and Jayke F‘s description of a day at the nude beach, where he confronts his insecurities and through the visibility of diverse bodies finds a path to appreciating his own body.
Elska Melbourne is 180 pages and is available in flagship print format or in a downloadable e-version. Both are available for order online from the Elska website as well as from a select group of shops around the world. In addition, the companion e-zine Elska Ekstra Melbourne is available, containing over 500 pages of outtakes and behind the scenes tales. The list of stockists and details of the subscription service can also be found on the Elska website.
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