Chris Nelson (1960-2006), photographer and co-founder of Bear Magazine in the 1980s, was the photographic pioneer in the gay-oriented erotic photography of mature men with hairy bodies and facial hair. His work directly led to the legitimizing of the Bear Community as a social group.
By profession, Nelson was a photomicroscopy researcher at the University of California's Lawrence Berkeley Labs.
Together with his then life partner, magazine publisher Richard Bulger, Nelson developed a characteristic "look", first in black-and-white portraits of men in San Francisco's biker and leather community, and then, as the Bear Community grew, in black-and-white erotic portraits of a great number of men who submitted themselves to the magazine as amateur models.
Nelson's photography was the sole subject of a 1991 book, "The Bear Cult: Photographs by Chris Nelson" (Gay Men's Press, London, ISBN 0-85449-161-9), introduced by Edward Lucie-Smith.
He died in the San Francisco Bay Area in December, 2006.
Nelson's book and photography are discussed by author Jack Fritscher in Ron Suresha's 2002 nonfiction book on the bear community, "Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions" (ISBN 1555835783).[1] Jack Fritscher also comments on Nelson's work in the introduction to "The Bear Book 2", edited by Les K. Wright.[2]
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
