April 10, 2019 - FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
“I DID IT FOR THE LOVE OF PORN!” – PAUL JOHNSON, THE GREATEST UNKNOWN EROTIC PHOTOGRAPHER RELEASES HIS INCREDIBLE ARCHIVE OF WORK
“I DID IT FOR THE LOVE OF PORN!” – PAUL JOHNSON, THE GREATEST UNKNOWN EROTIC PHOTOGRAPHER RELEASES HIS INCREDIBLE ARCHIVE OF WORK
Erotica’s greatest unknown photographer, Paul Johnson, has finally opened his personal archives. Johnson’s first full-time professional photography work in adult publications was in the 1960’s as a staff photographer for Jaybird magazine, shooting fun loving nudists as the ideas of sexual freedoms began to take form. By the 1970’s, Johnson was looking to take his work to a new level by creating the first full color single-scenario explicit adult publications. Almost entirely self-sufficient, Johnson scouted locations, hired models, created scenarios and wrote the storyline text for a product that was initially deemed too expensive to publish. When a publisher eventually took the risk, it was quickly realized that Johnson’s format and photos were incredibly popular. Initially producing two magazines per month for a single publisher, Johnson and his product would be in such high demand that he became his own competition, producing up to six magazines for several publishers a month. This may make Johnson one of the largest selling erotic magazine photographer of the period.
Connoisseur Series, Let’s Pretend, Bon Vivant, Ruby Collection and dozens of individually titled publications began to line adult book store shelves. Johnson shot some of the biggest and most popular women and men of the classic “golden age” of pornography. Seka, Annette Haven, Sue Nero, Lysa Thatcher, Juliet “Aunt Peg” Anderson (Johnson’s frequent assistant), Nina Hartley (her first erotic magazine photo shoot), Mai Lin, Sharon Cain, Serena, John Leslie, Richard Pacheco, Jon Martin, Jamie Gillis, Mike Horner and so many more. An impressive list by any means, yet it may have been the friends and amateurs that Johnson shot who helped to create his best works. Playing off his model’s real fantasies achieved a level of fun, erotic energy and authenticity that was rarely seen then or since.
Johnson’s career includes other “firsts” in the business as he shot the first explicit layout for the “educational” Sex & Marriage magazine (Vol. 1 and 2), which became the first hardcore publication sold on American adult book store shelves. Most importantly, Johnson created the “point of view” (or POV) shot stating, “I realized I was paying other men to enact my own fantasies,” as he began modeling in his own hardcore photo shoots with the support of his assistants. As the industry and tastes changed alongside the AIDS scare of the mid-1980’s, Johnson eventually left the business so as not to betray his own aesthetics.
Johnson’s blog/website (www.paulsfantasy.com) has expanded with digital copies of his classic publications (at a fraction of collector market prices) along with previously unseen outtakes with his memories on the various shoots. Original signed copies of these publications from his own collection will also become available soon. By opening his extensive archives making his incredible body of work available for purchase and (re)discovery, Johnson can now be viewed as one of the pioneers and masters of “golden age” erotic photography.
An inductee into the “Legends of Erotica” Hall of Fame,
Johnson is proud to proclaim himself as a “pornographer” and openly admits, “I
did it for the love of porn!”
For further information, image licensing, interviews, articles, etc.:
For further information, image licensing, interviews, articles, etc.:
Contact: Paul Johnson
Spirit Revealed Productions
Email: paul@paulsfantasy.com
