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| In 1954, when Harrison
Marks took his first nude photographs of Pamela Green, the titles of 'Glamour Photography'
and 'Glamour Photographer' had not yet been coined. It was not that nude photographs of
women were unknown, far from it. However, legitimate photographers of the period took
'figure studies', which were promoted as fine art, much as the paintings of Goya, Rubens
etc. As early as the mid-thirties, the man in the street could buy a book of 'figure
studies' by respected British photographers such as John Everard and Roye. However, such
books would be large format hardbacks that cost a good deal of money, which put them out
of reach of most working men in those days. There were other sources of nude photographs of young women before the mid-fifties. Countless plain brown envelopes containing all manner of erotic photographs were acquired from under the counter sources in exchange for bank notes. But the sources of such photographs were local, small scale operations. Cynics might find the dividing line between photographs published for their artistic merit and those reproduced for their erotic or pornographic appeal to be a fine one. Such a view was to be re-inforced by Roye himself when In 1955, he published Unique Edition. The booklet contains, amongst others, a photograph of a model he called Desirée. It showed pubic hair for the first time in a legitimate British publication. However, despite the photograph's artistic merit, the authorities took a dim view and in due course, he was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. Roye defended the resulting case vigorously, and the judge shared his view that the pursuit and representation of beauty should not be subject to petty, prudish considerations. When Harrison Marks was planning to put his photographs into print it was decided that, in promoting the nature of the new publications, the emphasis should be on their artistic merit - hence the choice of 'Kamera' as the title and HM's accompanying editorial, which was angled to give further cover to the booklets as material for students of figure photography. Pamela Green had modelled for John Everard and other 'art' photographers during the early fifties and, naturally, the poses she learnt as a result influenced her. Indeed, there was little in the nature of Harrison Marks' early figure studies to distinguish them from those of Everard and Roye, but by the time the first issue of Kamera was published in June 1957, I think it would be fair to say that the photographs it contained leaned rather more towards the erotic side than the purely artistic one. |
 Harrison Marks' early figure studies could truly be called artistic in the classical sense. However, neither he nor Pamela, his model partner, had any doubts about which market they really wanted to cater for.
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