By Paul Varnell

Contributing writer

“Comin’ at Ya!” is a book with a gimmick. This collection of previously unpublished color photographs of naked men presents many of the images in three dimensions.

The photos were taken by San Francisco amateur photographer Lloyd Denfield (1918-1992), known to everyone as “Denny.” Around 1950, Denfield began taking photos of men he met at the nude beaches he liked to visit or at gay parties he occasionally hosted. The photos included both casual and posed shots of naked men—“male nudes” seems too formal for many of these pictures—as well as shots of men engaging in sexual activity.

In 1954, Robert Mizer, founder of the Athletic Model Guild, suggested to Denfield that he try taking photos with a relatively new, compact and easy to use 3-D camera. (There is a photo of a young man holding the odd-looking camera on page 29.) Denfield thus became the first photographer to take 3-D photos of naked men without the traditional posing strap or an artfully placed arm, leg or wisp of cloth to obscure the genitals.

The camera worked by taking two pictures 2 1/2 to 3 inches apart. These could then be printed side by side on a card and viewed with special glasses that would help the eyes to merge the images and cause them to appear in 3-D. (Glasses are included at the end of this book.)

Denfield made no attempt to sell or distribute his photos. To have done so would have exposed him to prosecution. In a way, the photos were dangerous even to take since Denfield worked as an accountant for the U.S. Army. Any hint of his hobby would have gotten him fired.

His photographic activity took place between 1950 and 1965, at which point he suddenly stopped after being physically attacked and robbed. It is unclear whether he became demoralized by the experience or decided the risks were no longer worth taking. Nonetheless he preserved the nearly 10,000 photos he had taken and willed them to a friend at his death more than a quarter century later.

Physique photography historian David Chapman, who restored the badly deteriorated photos and compiled this selection of nearly 200 examples, says most of the shots of sexual activity are from the earlier years, 1950-1955, and that thereafter Denfield focused on photos of interesting or good-looking naked men or more formally posed “physique photos” of well-muscled men.

Some of the men do seem to be serious bodybuilders who already knew how to display their bodies to best advantage. A number of others just wished to look like bodybuilders, clasping their hand behind their backs or pressing their fists into their sides above the hips in imitation of bodybuilder photos they had seen. Most, however, seemed happy to merely stand naturally while Denfield takes his snapshot.

The book divides into two sections. Figures 1-96 are outdoor shots and figures 97-177 are taken indoors, most apparently in Denfield’s home: Some of the same furniture and curtains are visible in several photos. (We offer here a few of the tamer photos; most are far more explicit.)

In the outdoor photos, at least in the selection in the book, Denfield experimented with varied backgrounds and poses. Many of the men are photographed against the ocean, a lake or a stream. Photos at the ocean sometimes include driftwood or seaweed. One man is photographed pulling on a piece of fishing net slung over his shoulder. (Don’t miss the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.)

Shots taken in woodlands or the nearby California hills often have the man standing on or by a tree branch or by a rock—some element of the natural world to suggest a link between man and nature. One man is on horseback.

Some of the men used props familiar from other physique photographers, such as a sword, a fencing foil, a long staff or bow and arrow. One man holds a discus in imitation of a familiar Greek statue. You wonder whether Denfield provided these props or whether the men who were practiced models had their own equipment.

Denfield made a similar attempt to vary the indoor photos, sometimes in the tradition of kitsch classicizing typical of physique photos of the time. Some of the men pose next to a classical column, while one man in a nicely composed shot stands next to a large, white urn. Another imitates the pose of Michelangelo’s “David”—with a small statue of the sculpture sitting on the floor beside him just in case the allusion is not clear to everyone. Other men are photographed reading a book, (implausibly) talking on the telephone or holding a drink and smoking a cigarette.

Denfield also experimented with half a dozen photos of the subject in front of a mirror, either to show his body from different angles or—when looking at himself—as a possible allusion to the Narcissus myth. Unlike Mapplethorpe, however, who liked to include his own image in such pictures, Denfield prudently sought anonymity and avoided letting his own image be visible.

Probably the most common “prop” is the men’s own erections. A few seem a little uncertain what to think about being photographed so, but most seem quite pleased at the visible evidence of their virility—some smiling broadly. At least one is laughing.

As gay erotica historian Thomas Waugh notes in his foreword, the photos must have been the “first wild glimpse of an entirely new ocean” for men who saw them in the 1950s. For us today, they are an unusual piece of pre-Stonewall gay history, newly recovered after lying in obscurity for 45-50 years. There is even a rare picture of Neal Bate (figure 139) who as “Blade” drew the famed erotic series, “The Barn.” (In an e-mail message Waugh corrects a misstatement in his foreword that figure 77 is also Bate. It is not.)

A personal note: I had difficulty getting the 3-D effect to work at first; it took repeated tries over a period of three days, looking at different pictures, holding the glasses an inch or more away from my eyes, finding the right distance to hold the book, and learning to focus my eyes slightly beyond the picture plane. But after I did it with one, the others were easier to see. If you can’t do it at first, don’t give up.

Make sure the pages are completely flat. In an e-mail exchange, compiler Chapman stated that the reason the book is “ring bound” is that that was the only way they could make sure the pages would lie flat.

“Comin’ at Ya!: The Homoerotic 3-D Photographs of Denny Denfield,” by David Chapman with a foreword by Thomas Waugh. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. $27.95 in the U.S.