Famous Gay Photographers - Herb Ritts

Born in Los Angeles, Ritts (1952-2002) studied economics at Bard College. His first success as a photographer came in 1978 when Ritts shot actors Jon Voight and Ricky Schroeder. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, he continued working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles as a celebrity portraitist. Remarkably, in a six-year period, Ritts published four books. The first, Men/Women (1989), used the human figure in a sensuous and graphically charged manner, taking the best of both fine art and commercial photography traditions. His photographs have appeared in Interview, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and Elle. In 1985, Ritts exhibited his photographs in a gallery setting for the first time. The second, Duo (1991), presented a series of gay couples in the nude. Sexualized by their nudity, and normalized by their humanity, the project drew from both studio and ethnographic portrait styles.