Bathhouse Photos In Book. Sunil Gupta is an Indian born Canadian photographer who is now based in London UK.
He has just released his first coffee table book of bathhouse photos entitled Queer. This is a comprehensive overview of his work from the 1970s to the present.
One of the most interesting photo essays from the book is a photo exhibit Sunil created called Sun City.
This featured a gay Indian man walking around in a Paris bathhouse.
No surprise Sunil has an interest in the subject, as he used to work at baths.
In fact it was because of his career at the tubs, he got involved in photography. He tells xtra magazine
I worked at a bathhouse on Crescent St in Montreal. The gay village was right downtown then. When the bathhouse burned down, I took pictures of it for a gay newsletter we put out called The Gayzette [a play on the city’s English-language daily newspaper, The Montreal Gazette]. That’s how I got my start in photography. It was very inadvertent and accidental.
Now, Gupta says he is amazed at how much Indian society is changing.
“It’s only been two years since the law banning gay sex was dropped. In 2004, I had the first major gay art show there of many of my photographs. The name of the gallery I work with in India, Vadehra Gallery, is on the cover of the Queer book. That they have been happy to put their name on such a book is a sign of how much things have changed in Indian society. This is a huge shift in thinking.”
Queer is now available in most bookstores. Click Sun City for more bathhouse images from the Sun City Photo Exhibition.
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