Our collection currently numbers in the thousands. We have collected photos of loving male couples for over 20 years. We would like to clarify the photo selection that has been an important topic here. Today, I understand that the mass media and spread of US productions has led to modern reticence of young Italians to be physically as comfortable. But they were not gay – just warm and accustomed to the “baccia” from childhood. Italian youth at that time wandered about in groups of 10 or so, holding hands and touching amply. Thirty yeas ago, I observed this first hand in rural Italy. It’s the fault of Sigmund Freud who had this obsessive idea that mental illness was precipitated by repressed or latent homosexuality that the term “homosexual” and public media gave a label on which religious and bigots could hang their prejudicial hatred. The very concept of two men intimate was alien to most Americans. However, the vast majority were not homosexual. They may even have had “parties” with male on male couples dancing. Since contact with females was verboten in public, the men often had “bromances”, even playfully horsing around and sitting on laps in photographs.
It is highly unlikely that homosexual couples would openly go into a photographer’s to create images that could be misinterpreted.Įspecially when there were long periods of male only company – before proper roads and trains, men working on sites, railroads, cattle and farming, for example, spent months on the road. In the 19th Century, photography was expensive with usually one photographer in a small town. Such photographs were mostly NOT indicative of homosexual relationships. So stop being a whinging bitch & just enjoy the album for what it is. & Africa… so again I will clarify & say that I don’t think 2 wrongs make a right & that we have a very long way to go to end all hatred, racism, homophobia etc… but we sure have come a long way. Just enjoy those photos & be grateful that we as gay people are living in this day & age in a Western/European society that has acknowledged us as (LGBTQI+) being human… we are treated worse than animals in the M.E.
I’m not saying 2 wrongs make a right… but seriously people, don’t pick on every bloody little thing. I don’t see people in African countries or Middle Eastern countries fighting for the rights of minorities! Go see how minorities are treated in those countries till this day. I’m not even white & im sick of all this bullshit… all I see in western/European societies these days is that you’re almost not allowed to be white… it’s like as if every white person is expected to pay the price for all the wrongs their ancestors had done in the past… enough is enough. “LOVING: A Photographic History” is currently available for pre-order. Now, they’ve compiled their collection into a stunning 336-page coffee table book of never-before-published images, including snapshots, portraits, and group photos. Who were they? And how did their snapshot end up at an antique shop in Dallas, Texas, bundled together with a stash of otherwise ordinary vintage photos?įrom there, Nini and Treadwell began collecting vintage photos of men in love dating between 18. We were intrigued that a photo like this could have survived into the twenty-first century. Taking such a photo, during a time when they would have been less understood than they would be today, was not without risk.
The open expression of the love that they shared also revealed a moment of determination. These two young men, in front of a house, were embracing and looking at one another in a way that only two people in love would do.ĭating sometime around 1920, the young men were dressed unremarkably the setting was suburban and out in the open. And in that singular moment, it reflected us back to ourselves. We looked at that photo, and it seemed to look back at us. The subjects in this vintage photo were two young men, embracing and gazing at one another–clearly in love. Our collection began twenty years ago when we came across an old photo that we thought was one of a kind.
Among them was a picture of two men who appeared to be a couple. The project began 20 years ago, when they stumbled across a box of old photographs in an antique store in Dallas. “LOVING: A Photographic History” is a new photography book by husbands Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell.