The Company of Men

You're killing me, Blake Little.

Oh jeez.

Just when I thought I would be able to concentrate at work I catch wind of Blake Little's photo exhibition entitled, "The Company of Men" which features the most handsome of jaw-dropping, body-slamming, take-the-wind-out-of-your-sails men.

Swoon!

This exhibit is at the other end of the SmoothN'Young Bruce Weber photography and the Abercrombie and Fitch 6-packed dominant spectrum.

The exhibit opens tonight at The Wessel + O'connor Fine Art space in Dumbo and lasts through November 1st.

You can view some of the exhibit online here. Totally safe for work, all the men are clothed yet still they're going to make you weak in the knees.

Wessel O’Connor is very pleased to present THE COMPANY OF MEN, a solo exhibition by photographer Blake Little. This is his first new work for the gallery since his 1997 series of nudes entitled “Dichotomy,” which also became a book with the same title.

Blake explains how the project started: “I wanted to start a new series yet I was bored with photographing nudes, I wanted to get past the nude. I wanted to take photographs that were emotionally charged without being obvious or consciously sexy, distilling exactly what I find compelling about men into a photograph without showing everything. I also wanted to show a particular type of masculine gay male that I appreciated and related to but that I did not see photographed anywhere else; an alternative to stereotypes or what is usually seen as†the physical ideal of a man in the mainstream.

I started photographing my friends and then friends of friends and guys who looked like they should be my friends. It turns out that these particular guys were somehow connected, a large network of men all over the country, invisible to the outside world. I photographed them using the same process and skills that I have developed over the past 20 satisfying years as a celebrity portrait photographer. I dressed them in their own clothes and photographed them in their own homes or around where they live. I choose environments and clothes that visually or characteristically complemented the subject. I photographed these men more instinctually, reacting to the way they made me feel.”

Blake Little makes his living as a commercial photographer in Los Angeles, a town where it is said there is only one industry. He has done portraits of actors, musicians, athletes, politicians and celebrities; for magazines such as Time, ESPN, Parade and Entertainment Weekly, as well as movie campaigns for the likes of “Get Smart”,"Austin Powers" and "Borat."

Killer!