The New Nude

in 2004 I had an inspiration to take my "New Nude" philosophy a step beyond the internet.
I wanted to create a high quality mag that would take erotic photography past the tasteless nudie mags.
it would showcase influential photographers of the past and present,
review gear,
provide interviews and talk about current trends and events in the genre.
the premiere issue was created with the advice of a snobbish manhattan advertising agency, and was simply called HEGRE...
It was beautiful,
handy format,
and with Luba on the cover,
shot at the Mondrian Hotel in L. A.,
really cool and sexy,
but I really didn't want to name it after myself,
but they said it was like swiss watches:
- nobody could pronounce them, but everyone wanted one.
but they were wrong,
so after one issue we changed the name to THE NEW NUDE.
we had a great staff that was dedicated to following their passions and never giving up…
and I losing money every day doing it... ;-)
there were four issues over 2006 featuring the works of shooters like helmut newton, victor skrebneski, dodd essick, andreas bitesnich.
it became a hugely critical success,
and was distributed in over 30 countries.
but a magazine can't survive by over the counter sales and subscriptions alone though, and like any magazine ours needed advertising revenue to make a real go of it...
THE NEW NUDE was way ahead of anything else like it in both quality and concept,
but most advertising buyers get scared when you focus on,
so after issue 4,
near the end of 2006,
we were forced to modify the concept,
and PHOTOICON was born,
but that's a story for another time.