Though he pays the bills by photographing portraits, Peter J. Gorman's passion is photographing nudes. In an effort to find models, Gorman began posting signs two years ago at New York dance schools, and soon had more interested subjects than he could shoot. "Dancers need money, and they are comfortable with their bodies," explained Gorman. Similar signs posted at New York University, by contrast, barely generated any response.
His early shots were taken against blank backdrops, but he soon realized that using his apartment as a background lent the photographs a sense of history. Partially clothed bodies also suggested to him a story of some kind. "A woman wearing some clothing -- maybe just pants or just a shirt -- there's an intimacy about it and so it's more erotic. In some shots I like the model to look caught off guard or even scared -- people sometimes look like that in relationships."
Gorman is pursuing a more gentle kind of eroticism. "I'm not turned on by the stripper look," he says. "Overly made-up women grabbing their breasts -- it doesn't look real to me."
Peter's wife, Rachel, interviews all the models, and it's her voice you hear on their answering machine. "It makes them more comfortable to know I'm here, and it makes me more comfortable to meet them," she said.
How long will Gorman continue to take shots of naked women in his apartment? "I'll probably keep doing it until I can't even stand looking at a nude person anymore," says Gorman. "That's how I tend to operate. Then I'll do something else."

-Rufus Griscom, nerve magazine"

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