I thought it would make sense to start my Blog with a short introduction, as well as a dive into what inspired my photographic style.
My name is James Bontemps, and I have been fascinated with photography for over 50 years. It started as a young boy, when my Grandmother gave me her old camera – a Coronet Victor, a Bakelite 127 roll film viewfinder camera.
Made around 1955, it was not a particularly expensive camera, but I thought it took pretty decent photos, so I spent all my time shooting wildlife, architecture and nature.
About 4 or 5 years later, I became intimately acquainted with my father’s extensive collection of Playboy and Penthouse magazines. As a 14 year old, I had the unique experience of hanging around with my father, who at the time had been producing low budget X-Rated films in L.A. for several years.
He had a gorgeous home up on Mulholland Drive, with a nice pool, and sliding glass doors all along the back.
I spent weekends up there, and weekdays with my Mom in Santa Monica. They had split up when my mother could no longer put up with my father’s career choice.
He shot a lot of films there, and the pool and deck was always filled with the hottest skinny teen girls, tanning and swimming topless and nude – mostly completely nude.
There was no shortage of gorgeous girls willing to do whatever it took to be in a film.
I will need to devote another blog post to some of those weekend adventures, but suffice to say, they were interesting times!
The Playboy and Penthouse magazines were there not only for my father’s entertainment, but as kind of study guides for the girls, and also for the guys to get hard for the films.
It’s difficult to describe how the 1970’s were to people who never grew up during that time. It truly was a free love atmosphere, especially in Southern California. Looking back at it through the eyes of the way things are today, it seems crazy, but there it was.
The girls in Playboy and Penthouse at the time were not usually models. They were predominantly fresh young amateur girls, mostly slim, with small perky tits, usually gorgeous tan lines and the most exquisite 70’s style pubic hair.
A few of the pictorials and girls were my favorites. Girls like stunning Jill DeVries posing completely nude on a boat with a guy in a swimsuit in the May 1976 Playboy pictorial ‘The Best-Kept Secret in the Caribbean’.
I loved the idea of nude girls with clothed guys – the CMNF genre. It communicated power and submission.
I know that kind of way of thinking is frowned upon today, but the 70’s were really a time for hedonism, and male power combined with female submission. The young girls loved it. They craved both the hot well built guys, and the older men, which is another dynamic I love.
Another pictorial that I fell in love with was Betsy Harris in the February 1977 issue of Penthouse magazine.
It was such a natural fun pictorial, and Betsy was gorgeous playing with her cute pussy.
It was not until much later that I found put that Betsy Russell was actually Terri Nunn who went on to be the lead singer for the rock band ‘Berlin’, and that she had posed for that pictorial when she was only 16.
It’s not surprising though, as I know the same thing happened for a lot of the girls that showed up to the house on Mulholland, eager to be in a film anyway they could.
The photos I loved the most were the ones where the girls were in natural places doing everyday things, like being in a hot tub nude like Lisa Welch.
The girls that I saw in the pages of Playboy & Penthouse, along with the real girls from Mulholland, made me want to be the person who shot these beautiful images – including the possibility of even more erotic couples content.
The pictorial ‘Riverboat Gambolers’ from the August 1977 Playboy magazine featured Playmate of the Year Patti McGuire.
This was what I was going to do. I spent years thinking about it, and when I moved to Toronto in the 1980’s I started to make a serious plan. Earning money from jobs that I got through contacts my father had, helped me to save and network at the same time.
The culmination of that dream that started when I was 14, came to full fruition when I had the opportunity to shoot Playboy’s 2018 Cyber Girl of the Year – Vancouver B.C. born Olivia Preston holding my precious June 1977 issue of Playboy Magazine featuring non other than Patti McGuire – the 1977 Playmate of the Year!
