Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia but it is too often overlooked by the outside world for the brash bigger Sydney. However Liam Campbell, the Editor in Charge of ELSKA , our favorite queer photozine, he said to QUEERGURU that he was told over and over that Melbourne is Australia’s queerest, most liberal, and artsy city.
So he dedicated the latest issue of ELSKA (the 49th) to the City and he told us that the moment he arrived, that he knew that the claims had not been exaggerated. He soon got carried away with the mood of the City and so this marks the first time in the mag’s nine-year history that everyone met opted to bare all for their photos!
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Inside ‘Elska Melbourne’ and the companion zine ‘Elska Ekstra Melbourne’, readers are introduced to sixteen ordinary men from the local LGBTQ community. Each was photographed in their city and in their homes, revealing a diverse bunch of beautiful bodies. Each subject also wrote a story to go with their photographs, enabling readers to get to know them at an even more personal level.
Some of the stories you’ll read here include: John H’s account of discovering gay liberation in the early 1970s; Luke B’s remembering of growing up gay in rural Australia and discovering that he wasn’t actually ‘the only gay in the village’; Zhi Z’s confession about using travel to understand more about himself and where he belongs in this world; and Jayke F’s description of a day at the nude beach, where he confronts his insecurities and through the visibility of diverse bodies finds a path to appreciating his own body.
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‘Elska Melbourne’ is 180 pages and is available in theirflagship print format or in a downloadable e-version.
Both are available for order online from the Elska website as well as from a select group of shops around the world.
In addition, the companion e-zine ‘Elska Ekstra Melbourne’ is available, containing over five hundred of pages of
outtakes and behind the scenes tales. The list of stockists and details of the subscription service can also be
found on the Elska website: www.elskamagazine.com. 