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How it all Began..... |
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This is Mike Arlen, the
unique British photographer of male nudes, whose industrious life started as a
child because an amazing mother treated him as an adult from an early
age. Between 12 and 18 he acted in hundreds of radio plays and stage
productions. Being an avid reader of personality profiles on the
celebrities of the day he felt at 15 he could write them as well and his adult
actor friends at the BBC taught him how he could bluff his way in to interview
celebrities. Conversationally he sounded at least double his age and his
features started appearing in SHE magazine and Woman's Own.
Soon after he started
taking fashion pictures a German magazine editor saw a series of his shots in
print on two bodybuilders in swimwear and asked if he could take nudes on them
for Germany. Mike took his first model to a farm and had him
surrounded with cows and sheep holding lambs. But he realized quickly
both sexes enjoyed watching guys undressing from uniforms of the past and present.
And putting guys into surprising settings like buses, trains and the engine
rooms of cargo ships quickly made him known. But he knew under British law
erection shots in magazines would have them confiscated by the police so he
tied up with a Dutch company to produce one edition of MANPOWER that had 50 of
his models with extraordinary erections.
The first seven volumes
of Mike Arlen's Guys quickly went out of print and collectors of volumes 8 to
15 sometimes become obsessed with tracking down the early issues. They
place ads offering £50 a copy and get no reaction. In the nineties the
government realized Britain's sex laws were light years behind other countries
and a judge finally gave the British Board of Film Censors permission to pass
sex videos. So in Mike's magazine world erections were legal at
last.
Photographers of sex
videos had been contacting him for years asking if they could combine his guys
with their girls in movies. Mike didn't care if his models were straight,
gay or bisexual and made a point of getting to know what they wanted to do in
future. Taschen Publishing now have an impressive large and heavy coffee
table excitement called the Big Penis Book in which the Arlen pictures
stimulate 25 pages. He is the only British photographer in it and lovers
of the subject get the best deal through Amazon.
The New York magazine
INCHES has been running Arlen spreads for years and last year the May edition
is worth tracking down for Hardy Cybulski, June has David Doyle and the August
issue features Ray Spring undressing from policeman uniform. Mike says he
won't go into video as he doesn't believe in starting anything he won't stay
with for at least 10 years. Right now he is working on other career plans
and only stays with male nudes as he knows it wouldn't please many people if he
stops.
Studying his magazines
in print, volumes 8 to15 of Mike Arlen's Guys, that have at least 20 stunning
sights in each edition, plus MANPOWER, his clients quickly learn they can also
have sets of ten 5 by 7 inch colour prints on favourite guys at their even more
revealing best. When he is not taking test shots on applicants he can be
contacted through mikearlen@btopenworld.com or by phone at his London number on 0207 373 1107, or by
post at 23, Wetherby Mansions, Earls Court Square, London SW5 9BH.