PHYSIQUE: THE LIFE OF JOHN S. BARRINGTON.
by Rupert Smith
Category: Biography & Autobiography

In wartime London, an eccentric figure stalked through the blackout sporting a monocle, long hair, a malacca cane, and a camera slung round his neck. Through a brightly lit underworld of caf's and bars, he chased the soldiers, sailors and airmen looking for love and a bed for the night. He befriended, seduced, and photographed them. Over the following decades John S. Barrington established himself as a pioneer of physique photography - the genteel foreplay to the porn explosion of the '70s. But John was uneasy with his sexuality, and, after a succession of unrequited love affairs with straight models, he married. A depiction of bohemian life in London, New York, and Paris, the outlandish schemes that often ended in prison, and a series of strange friendships with celebrities from Coward and Cocteau to Lennon and Bob Marley.