We’ll never know who took these pictures. Or identify the models. Not where, not when. So they have to stand on their own, and they do – evoking emotions and sensations beyond memory.

These anonymous photos have the power to connect us across the decades. That they exist at all is a testament to the existence of men who risked jail time for taking, mailing, or just possessing them. 

That they managed to avoid the trash heap is a minor miracle. If they convey a message it’s “We were here.” 

Many of these prints were made by taking pictures of other prints because your local photography shop or drugstore was more likely to call the cops than process these sorts of negatives. So “copy prints” were made, sometimes skillfully, often crudely. They passed first from hand to hand, and later from generation to generation. 

Because we recognize the desire inherent in these images they can still attract, arouse, amuse, and move us.

Not bad for a bunch of unimportant pictures.