I remember sitting in this little room with Chris chatting after we finished shooting, and we kept making that sort of eye contact that tries to lure you into a kiss, but I was trying to resist it. I kind of wish that he did want to reveal it to the camera, but he just wasn’t ready, although he did write about it in his Elska story.” Daniel T, Lisbon (Portugal).Ħ) Chris C, Taipei (Taiwan) – “Even though I’m a pretty boring, monogamous, old-fashioned sort of married guy, there are times when you just connect with someone. Then I was so embarrassed when he revealed that he has a congenital hand deformity, which I had no idea about, and he just didn’t want to show it in pictures. This I thought just looked weird, so I actually scolded him. He kind of had this pouty, moody look so it worked for me, but then I noticed he would also sometimes leave his sleeves hanging really low with his hands tucked inside.
I’ve never done anything like that again since, but would again one day.”ĥ) Daniel T, Lisbon (Portugal) – “From the start of the shoot I saw that Daniel always had his hands in his pockets.
I’ll always remember sitting there after we finished working, drinking tea on his sofa while still naked and not even noticing the nudity. So we did, and you know, it’s awkward at first but soon you forget that you have no clothes on and just get to work. He wanted to do a nude shoot but insisted that if he were to pose naked, that me and my assistant Andriy would have to be naked too. It might have had to do with him being a native Russian though – most Slavs I’ve shot have been more on the hospitable side.” Roman T, Berlin (Germany).Ĥ) Tusan C, Reykjavík (Iceland) – “This was truly one of the most bizarre experiences. Right after we finished working, he popped the cork off a bottle of bubbly and then cooked dinner for us. Anyway, the most hospitable guy ever met during any Elska shoot was Roman T in Berlin. It’s even more interesting that some cities tend to have more cordial people than others (Mumbai being probably the warmest and our next edition Helsinki being the coldest). He was definitely the most determined subject I ever shot, so whenever guys in later shoots complain about cold or rain or whatever, I tell them about Davíð.” Davið J, Reykjavík (Iceland).ģ) Roman T, Berlin (Germany) – “It’s interesting that sometimes guys we meet on the road are really friendly and hospitable and other times it’s all business. So basically what we did was to leave his car running with the heat cranked up so we could have warm-up breaks in there after every twenty or so frames outside. It was maybe two degrees at most and very windy, but Davíð was determined to do a nude shoot. So we rushed out to Hvalfjörður where Davíð wanted to shoot. I was playing with his little animals too and then his bunny bit me, which startled me into remembering that it was late November and the sun would be setting early. He agreed to our surprise, and the first Elska nude happened there in my little Ukrainian kitchen.” Sasha K, Lviv (Ukraine).Ģ) Davið J, Reykjavík (Iceland) – “We met Davíð at his flat where he made coffee, dished out loads of cakes and funny salty sweets, and chatted.
And finally when we returned back to the flat and were about to say goodbye, Andriy suggested, half-jokingly, that he come in to do a full nude shoot. Then we ended up with a small crowd of elderly ladies when he went topless in a public park. Then we took a walk around the old city to shoot, running into trouble from someone who tried to bribe us for being on what he called but actually wasn’t “private property”. He really adored them, eating like ten of them as my assistant Andriy interpreted for him into Ukrainian what we were going to do. In light of that we asked editor Liam Campbell to recount the most memorable photo shoots.ġ) Sasha K, Lviv (Ukraine) – “Lviv was the first ever Elska city, and we shot Sasha on the first day there, so I’ll always have fond memories of him even if he hadn’t been really enthusiastic and sweet, which he was! When he arrived at the flat I was staying at, I first offered some tea and shortbread biscuits that I brought along from England. For two years the editorial team of Elska has brought intimate portrayals of men from across the globe, in photos and writing. Gay men’s magazine Elska is currently celebrating its second anniversary.