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, when I was 14, I discovered my father’s collection Playboy and Penthouse magazines in the bottom drawer of his bedside table.
Of course I had the normal teenage boy reaction to them, but I also saw much more in those forbidden, taboo, yet exciting photos.
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 caught my eye and became 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 wasn’t until much later that I found out 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.
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, made me want to photograph beautiful images, like the pictorial ‘Riverboat Gambolers’ from the August 1977 Playboy magazine featuring Playmate of the Year Patti McGuire.
This was what I was going to do. I spent years thinking about it, and in the 1980’s I started to make a serious plan.
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!
