James Bidgood was a young gay man in Manhattan in the late 50's early 60's. His photographs embody the essence of Sontag's meditation on Camp (the love of the exaggerated).
Originally aiming to be an actor, he ended up taking photographs for magazines and appeared regularly as a drag performer at Club 82 in the East Village.
His photos are usually of young naked men in elaborate scenes which draw from mythology. His work deals with self-invention. Glamorous identities assumed by so many who came to NYC from someplace else, roles that gay men assume, ect. He makes huge elaborate colorful sets for photos about masturbation fantisies. His images have a technicolor type look and are extremely glamorous.
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