This month Elska marks its eight year anniversary. During this Mme the project has published forty-three beauMful print ‘bookazines’, each made in a different city and focused on sharing the bodies and voices of diverse men from LGBTQ communiMes around the world.
The goal of Elska is two-fold. One is to transport readers to various ciMes across the globe, from places you expect to have a big gay scene as well as places we tend to know less about. That’s why Elska’s roster so far includes issues made in Berlin (Germany), Bogotá (Colombia), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Almaty (Kazakhstan), San Francisco (California), Dhaka (Bangladesh), and many more (Elska’s reach so far has hit every single conMnent except AntarcMca). It’s all to reveal that gays are everywhere and we all deserve a spotlight.
A second goal of Elska is to introduce readers to ordinary men in each city, the sort of guys they may meet if they actually visited the city themselves, and to show these people as just as, if not more, compelling and beauMful as any model or celebrity. These men are presented via an inMmate photoshoot (some pics in the city streets, dressed in their own style; and some pics at home, with less or no clothes) plus a personal story (wriben by the parMcipants themselves). Here the readers can get so close to these men that they can’t help but fall for them, and in the process they can shed convenMonal noMons of what kind of bodies are beauMful and what kind of stories are compelling. By seeing these subjects as real people, their gorgeousness is able to shine in a way that is refreshingly sincere and sMll too absent in media.
“Before I started Elska I was trying to make my way in the fashion photography industry,” says Elska creator and chief photographer Liam Campbell. “Although I’d long adored editorial photography, and portraiture in general, once I started working in the London fashion scene I instantly felt a distaste for how models were treated. Elska was born out of a desire to have an outlet for my own creaMvity as well as my values, where I’d aim to shoot ‘normal‘ people, never reject anyone, and present them with dignity.”
“I then combined this desire with my love for travel,” conMnues Liam, “and decided to make a lible zine. For this I flew to Lviv (Ukraine), put out an open call for subjects, and then shot everyone who wanted to take part, revealing via my camera the beauty in every single one of the people I met there. I printed up a few hundred copies, told myself I didn’t care how well it sold, and readied myself for insults about how the ‘models‘ weren’t modelesque enough or how the segngs were too basic (I wanted to use people’s own homes for the shoots and their own neighbourhoods for the outdoor shots). In truth I did get some of this backlash, quite a bit in fact, but I also got a lot of love. Fortunately my project resonated with enough people that aher eight years Elska is sMll going, and it is stronger than ever.“
Elska’s collecMble print publicaMons are sold in select shops around the world and for order online. Also available are limited ediMon signed art prints, e-zines, annual subscripMons, and more. A list of stockists and more informaMon can be found on the Elska website, www.elskamagazine.com.
