A toast, friends, for though the years keep piling high, you’ve survived yet another. Hopefully those years are getting better for you all the time. Ours certainly are—knock on wood. The festive photo above was made by U.S. lensman Paul H. Oelman, feautures an unidentified model, and dates from the early or mid-1940s. Oelman was born in 1880 and began his career in Dayton, Ohio, where he met the Wright Brothers and shot photos of their airplane flights. His nude period came later, when he moved his base to Cincinnati, a place which, considering its conservative values, seems a dangerous locale for erotic photography. But he made himself a success there just the same.
Oelman eventually became known throughout the U.S., gave talks to regional camera clubs, and in 1948 founded a national lecture program for the Photographic Society of America. Interesting note about his work method: he preferred to shoot local society girls, and did so with their mothers present as chaperones. We can’t even conceive of how that would be viewed today. Would the mothers be called groomers? Anyway, Oelman titled this particular work “Pagan,” and that seems as good a wish as any for the upcoming year. We plan to have a positively pagan year, and we hope you have whatever type of year you seek. 2023! Let’s do this!
