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Bidgood
Extraordinarias fotografas de sus trabajos para cine, teatro, revistas y presentaciones. Edicin especial con tapa dura y sobrecubierta
- GenresArtPhotographyLGBTQueer
175 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
59 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Benderson
48 books47 followersBruce Benderson is a novelist, essayist, journalist, and translator.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 23, 2009
Bidgood's work was pretty and sexy and pretty sexy!
January 6, 2008
A photo documentary of the works of James Bidgood. Lots of male nudity and homoerotic scenarios circa 1969.
October 12, 2008
They don't make homosexuality like this anymore. It's a shame, really.
October 8, 2010
This artist is the very definition of Do It Yourself.Creating a dream world of flesh and fantasy in his apartment with tin foil,frisky youths and a camera.
November 17, 2022
Much has been written about James Bidgood the auteur - although not anywhere near enough while he was here that’s for damn sure. So I wanted to take a moment here on Goodreads to acknowledge the man I was so privileged and grateful to have known behind the lights, the chiffon, the glitter and whimsy and leave some record of my personal recollections of him so others can maybe form a new appreciation of not only how important a creative whirlwind he was - but also what a beautiful, complex and so often under appreciated human being he was who despite everything, continued to gift the world so much for so little in return. His impact on Queer Culture in particular is undeniable.
A stylistic precursor to Photographers the likes of Pierre et Gilles, David LaChapelle, and Film Directors like Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Baz Luhrmann, his broad legacy of work speaks for itself and will forever be the benchmark upon which they will be judged. So many of those people and others like them owe much of their successful careers to him due to the bold and brave moves he forged in birthing a truly unique aesthetic in an era full of abuse, danger, ignorance, and risk of arrest. Yet despite all this, he never did reap the same recognition or financial benefits he so deserved.
The only people I know of who have consistently lauded his work (and in turn, acknowledging its importance on their own), are John Cameron Mitchell and Bruce LaBruce. But then again, they’ve always been class acts for as long as I’ve known them. So thank you John, thank you Bruce.
Jimmy was a very dear and cherished friend of mine for the last decade or so of his life, and we talked often about any and everything - from hopes and dreams, to the fears we hide away and try our best to ignore. Although he knew that [despite his best efforts] he was starting to slow down, he continued to rail against the very notion all the same and never stopped working on projects and ideas until he just no longer had a choice.
The sheer volume of ideas inside that incredible creative brain of his which remained unrealised was a constant thorn in his side - and he would convey his fears of them remaining so to me often. More than anything else, it was the cruel unrelenting ticking of Time that really bothered him. He understood how precious a commodity it was and he was constantly scribbling ideas down on anything he had to hand, and recording ideas on a little voice recorder his friend had bought for him. His tiny apartment was a treasure trove of wonders all meticulously crafted by his own hand as he had always done. He truly contained multitudes, and then some.
I’d like to make it clear that in the following I have chosen to share some quotes I’ve chosen from private emails we exchanged over the years. I did not take this decision lightly by any means and thought long and hard about whether it was right - or indeed, proper to do so. But to truly help illuminate and illustrate the man I knew, it felt necessary to use all the colours I had available to me in my own paintbox to help provide context to this wondrous and complex man. So despite what others may think, I believe Jimmy would understand and be ok with my doing so.
Jimmy and I got to know each other after crossing paths many years ago. Of course, I was aware of his work - I was a fan, and being a Queer cis man it kinda came with the territory - and welcome territory at that: Safe. Familiar. Welcoming. Immersive. Home.
A friendship swiftly blossomed and we found we were alike in so many ways - he often joked it was obviously because we were both Aries. Long and wonderfully meandering conversations about any and everything ensued over the intervening years. And when I say we discussed much - he once quipped:
“I can not stop myself from replying…go do your chores Paddy! I will be happy not to hear from you so I too can get some work done…but how thrilling our correspondence has become for me. I feel like I am living back in the era of letter writing…like I’m the Elizabeth Barrett to your Robert Browning!”
Oh, how his waspish wit would make me laugh!
Yet as the years progressed, I couldn’t shake the feeling Jimmy was just darn tired. Tired of fighting to get projects off the ground. Tired of trying to be seen and heard. Tired of all the well-meaning yet ultimately empty promises. Tired of missing “my Alan”. Tired of his apartment (“I’m living in a cave…it’s all glitter and Swarovski mind you!”) Despite these burden he carried he remained whip-smart with a dry quip to the end.
Sometime around late 2019 he told me about the Musical he had been writing and so desperately wanted to see realised before he passed. My first thought was: all these wonderful ideas and you’re creating a musical too?!?
That Musical was a project very dear to his heart, and which now sadly only remains languishing on paper and basic home recordings. He so desperately yearned to have someone with a command of their voice record some basic demos just so he could hear them realised in some way.
Despite my own best efforts reaching out to contacts I felt may have been able to help, time was just not on our side. My hope is someone will eventually run with it someday and help put it out there in the world in some tangible form. He may not be here physically to appreciate it, but it would feel like an egregious wrong had been course-corrected for sure. He so desperately wanted to see it realised before his proverbial curtain finally fell. It was truly a passion project of his, and to this day it breaks my heart that he was never able to obtain the traction for it he felt it deserved.
Ideas continued to pour out of Jimmy like flowing water. It was often both beautiful and heartbreaking to witness at the same time - heartbreaking just knowing the uphill battle he continued to face just to feel like he was given the time of day to be a voice in the room:
“Oh Paddy…I am so unhappy…my mind has never been so filled with ideas and images and even songs that I am the only one who will ever see or hear. Because I am old now and the old are dismissed and seen as inconsequential.”
At one stage, seemingly resigned to knowing he would never get to see his beloved Musical realised in his lifetime, he confided the following thoughts - which (for the sake of clarity) are collated here from various emails between us:
“My Musical…Musicals in general… have always been the most important thing in my life to me. I came to New York to pursue a career in writing or appearing in them, but now I wake every day asking God or whatever why won’t they let me do more? And I plummet into despair.”
“I have begged and begged…over and over again…if [people] know or knew of anyone who could read sheet music and play piano that would help me get at least five or six of the notated songs from my musical just recorded so I could just hear them…or maybe at a funeral when I die which I doubt would happen anyway. I break down crying so many times every day. My spirits are very low. So my Musical will never be seen. It really seems very unfair that even I will never hear anyone sing or play them, I just want to share what I think are nice songs with someone other than myself.”
“You’ll have to believe me that it really is what I was best at. What little I did do is not enough to allow me to go to my grave feeling fulfilled, but I appreciate what little I did meant as much as it did to so many.”
Despite the laser-focus of friends like Kelly McCaig (who deserves much gratitude for being the one truly physical constant in his later years), myself and a handful of others reaching out to those we knew in our community, we just could not seem to gain much (if any) interest, and with every dead-end we would boldly venture down, it just seemed to further compound his deep sadness.
“I do not want to cry any more. I do not want to be left behind or dismissed. I have lots of praise and compliments… but neither of those things pay my rent. I just wish I wasn’t wasting these precious days…I know I don’t have that many left.”
He could not be shaken from feeling the time he had left was growing short and his beautiful flights of fancy would quite possibly forever remain locked away in that wondrous mind of his.
One of the last times we talked, he signed off with this:
“I really do miss you and I am glad you are my friend. I hope I have meant as much to you as you have to me. I would have not wanted to have not ever known you…I wish you as always everything that is beautiful and loving.
Love,
Jimmy X”
Well thank you for being MY friend Jimmy.
Yes, you did mean a lot to me - before we met, when we knew each other as friends, and you always will. I and others will continue to champion your work until we meet again in some beautiful, shimmering illusion you’ve no doubt been busying yourself preparing for us.
I want to finish with a passage from one of our many communiques that has long stuck with me. I feel it should be shared with as many as possible so people understand how he saw the world, and that his voice is heard:
“This planet we occupy can be Heaven… we do not need to wait to die, it surrounds us now. But for some reason many are blind to it and don’t allow themselves to see. Have they ever looked…really looked… at a flower? At how beautiful they are but also so incredibly complicated and purposeful? I don’t think so. All you need to do is look around, appreciate it and be grateful.”
Now more than ever, we need souls like Jimmy. The world is a lot less brighter without him in it.
Rest in peace Jimmy. I love and miss you.
Beautiful. Complicated. Shimmering. Purposeful.
[March 28th 1933 - January 31st 2022]
Filmmaker. Photographer. Costume Maker. Window Dresser. Make-Up Artist. Performer. Stylist. Lyricist. Graphic Designer. Set Dresser. Habitual Dreamer. Visionary. Godfather of Camp. Gay Icon. Chosen Family. Cherished Friend.
A stylistic precursor to Photographers the likes of Pierre et Gilles, David LaChapelle, and Film Directors like Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Baz Luhrmann, his broad legacy of work speaks for itself and will forever be the benchmark upon which they will be judged. So many of those people and others like them owe much of their successful careers to him due to the bold and brave moves he forged in birthing a truly unique aesthetic in an era full of abuse, danger, ignorance, and risk of arrest. Yet despite all this, he never did reap the same recognition or financial benefits he so deserved.
The only people I know of who have consistently lauded his work (and in turn, acknowledging its importance on their own), are John Cameron Mitchell and Bruce LaBruce. But then again, they’ve always been class acts for as long as I’ve known them. So thank you John, thank you Bruce.
Jimmy was a very dear and cherished friend of mine for the last decade or so of his life, and we talked often about any and everything - from hopes and dreams, to the fears we hide away and try our best to ignore. Although he knew that [despite his best efforts] he was starting to slow down, he continued to rail against the very notion all the same and never stopped working on projects and ideas until he just no longer had a choice.
The sheer volume of ideas inside that incredible creative brain of his which remained unrealised was a constant thorn in his side - and he would convey his fears of them remaining so to me often. More than anything else, it was the cruel unrelenting ticking of Time that really bothered him. He understood how precious a commodity it was and he was constantly scribbling ideas down on anything he had to hand, and recording ideas on a little voice recorder his friend had bought for him. His tiny apartment was a treasure trove of wonders all meticulously crafted by his own hand as he had always done. He truly contained multitudes, and then some.
I’d like to make it clear that in the following I have chosen to share some quotes I’ve chosen from private emails we exchanged over the years. I did not take this decision lightly by any means and thought long and hard about whether it was right - or indeed, proper to do so. But to truly help illuminate and illustrate the man I knew, it felt necessary to use all the colours I had available to me in my own paintbox to help provide context to this wondrous and complex man. So despite what others may think, I believe Jimmy would understand and be ok with my doing so.
Jimmy and I got to know each other after crossing paths many years ago. Of course, I was aware of his work - I was a fan, and being a Queer cis man it kinda came with the territory - and welcome territory at that: Safe. Familiar. Welcoming. Immersive. Home.
A friendship swiftly blossomed and we found we were alike in so many ways - he often joked it was obviously because we were both Aries. Long and wonderfully meandering conversations about any and everything ensued over the intervening years. And when I say we discussed much - he once quipped:
“I can not stop myself from replying…go do your chores Paddy! I will be happy not to hear from you so I too can get some work done…but how thrilling our correspondence has become for me. I feel like I am living back in the era of letter writing…like I’m the Elizabeth Barrett to your Robert Browning!”
Oh, how his waspish wit would make me laugh!
Yet as the years progressed, I couldn’t shake the feeling Jimmy was just darn tired. Tired of fighting to get projects off the ground. Tired of trying to be seen and heard. Tired of all the well-meaning yet ultimately empty promises. Tired of missing “my Alan”. Tired of his apartment (“I’m living in a cave…it’s all glitter and Swarovski mind you!”) Despite these burden he carried he remained whip-smart with a dry quip to the end.
Sometime around late 2019 he told me about the Musical he had been writing and so desperately wanted to see realised before he passed. My first thought was: all these wonderful ideas and you’re creating a musical too?!?
That Musical was a project very dear to his heart, and which now sadly only remains languishing on paper and basic home recordings. He so desperately yearned to have someone with a command of their voice record some basic demos just so he could hear them realised in some way.
Despite my own best efforts reaching out to contacts I felt may have been able to help, time was just not on our side. My hope is someone will eventually run with it someday and help put it out there in the world in some tangible form. He may not be here physically to appreciate it, but it would feel like an egregious wrong had been course-corrected for sure. He so desperately wanted to see it realised before his proverbial curtain finally fell. It was truly a passion project of his, and to this day it breaks my heart that he was never able to obtain the traction for it he felt it deserved.
Ideas continued to pour out of Jimmy like flowing water. It was often both beautiful and heartbreaking to witness at the same time - heartbreaking just knowing the uphill battle he continued to face just to feel like he was given the time of day to be a voice in the room:
“Oh Paddy…I am so unhappy…my mind has never been so filled with ideas and images and even songs that I am the only one who will ever see or hear. Because I am old now and the old are dismissed and seen as inconsequential.”
At one stage, seemingly resigned to knowing he would never get to see his beloved Musical realised in his lifetime, he confided the following thoughts - which (for the sake of clarity) are collated here from various emails between us:
“My Musical…Musicals in general… have always been the most important thing in my life to me. I came to New York to pursue a career in writing or appearing in them, but now I wake every day asking God or whatever why won’t they let me do more? And I plummet into despair.”
“I have begged and begged…over and over again…if [people] know or knew of anyone who could read sheet music and play piano that would help me get at least five or six of the notated songs from my musical just recorded so I could just hear them…or maybe at a funeral when I die which I doubt would happen anyway. I break down crying so many times every day. My spirits are very low. So my Musical will never be seen. It really seems very unfair that even I will never hear anyone sing or play them, I just want to share what I think are nice songs with someone other than myself.”
“You’ll have to believe me that it really is what I was best at. What little I did do is not enough to allow me to go to my grave feeling fulfilled, but I appreciate what little I did meant as much as it did to so many.”
Despite the laser-focus of friends like Kelly McCaig (who deserves much gratitude for being the one truly physical constant in his later years), myself and a handful of others reaching out to those we knew in our community, we just could not seem to gain much (if any) interest, and with every dead-end we would boldly venture down, it just seemed to further compound his deep sadness.
“I do not want to cry any more. I do not want to be left behind or dismissed. I have lots of praise and compliments… but neither of those things pay my rent. I just wish I wasn’t wasting these precious days…I know I don’t have that many left.”
He could not be shaken from feeling the time he had left was growing short and his beautiful flights of fancy would quite possibly forever remain locked away in that wondrous mind of his.
One of the last times we talked, he signed off with this:
“I really do miss you and I am glad you are my friend. I hope I have meant as much to you as you have to me. I would have not wanted to have not ever known you…I wish you as always everything that is beautiful and loving.
Love,
Jimmy X”
Well thank you for being MY friend Jimmy.
Yes, you did mean a lot to me - before we met, when we knew each other as friends, and you always will. I and others will continue to champion your work until we meet again in some beautiful, shimmering illusion you’ve no doubt been busying yourself preparing for us.
I want to finish with a passage from one of our many communiques that has long stuck with me. I feel it should be shared with as many as possible so people understand how he saw the world, and that his voice is heard:
“This planet we occupy can be Heaven… we do not need to wait to die, it surrounds us now. But for some reason many are blind to it and don’t allow themselves to see. Have they ever looked…really looked… at a flower? At how beautiful they are but also so incredibly complicated and purposeful? I don’t think so. All you need to do is look around, appreciate it and be grateful.”
Now more than ever, we need souls like Jimmy. The world is a lot less brighter without him in it.
Rest in peace Jimmy. I love and miss you.
Beautiful. Complicated. Shimmering. Purposeful.
[March 28th 1933 - January 31st 2022]
Filmmaker. Photographer. Costume Maker. Window Dresser. Make-Up Artist. Performer. Stylist. Lyricist. Graphic Designer. Set Dresser. Habitual Dreamer. Visionary. Godfather of Camp. Gay Icon. Chosen Family. Cherished Friend.
May 26, 2025
Not gonna lie this book is structured bizarrely - the way the words are scattered across pages of images, and the images rarely line up with what’s written is a jarring reading experience.
You kind of have to flick between pages and constantly pivot your focus to take everything in.
That being said! Bidgood’s work is absolutely gorgeous and at the end of the day having a collection of his works to leaf through is the main appeal of this book.
Bruce Benderson’s writing on James Bidgood is not only a cherry on top of the imagery but a necessary elaboration on his process, influences and life that add incredible depth to his work.
Inspirational - I want to own this book
You kind of have to flick between pages and constantly pivot your focus to take everything in.
That being said! Bidgood’s work is absolutely gorgeous and at the end of the day having a collection of his works to leaf through is the main appeal of this book.
Bruce Benderson’s writing on James Bidgood is not only a cherry on top of the imagery but a necessary elaboration on his process, influences and life that add incredible depth to his work.
Inspirational - I want to own this book
Want to read
February 27, 202432 abebooks
June 6, 2025
Gay che più gay non si può, fantasie erotiche in technicolor e luci soffuse ma anche tanto camp e giocose, un mondo in cui immergersi e bruciare di desiderio, d’amore…
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews