Adrian Lourie Writes About the First Sixteen Years of meat

In 2010, I was at the beginning of my photography career, having recently graduated with a photography degree as a mature student. In truth, I was struggling to get going and needed a project. The most obvious thing was to play to my strengths. I knew men, LOVED them, and the idea of photographing them in their undies (or less) obviously appealed.

There was another motivation too. I wasn’t really seeing the men I fancied represented in gay magazines. The prevailing image of what constituted a sexy gay man felt incredibly narrow, and I wanted to photograph something different. Bigger guys, hairy guys, older guys, skinny guys, ordinary guys. Men who didn’t necessarily see themselves as models, but who I thought deserved to be looked at. It’s almost crazy to think that meat has now been around for sixteen years. In many ways, it feels like a lifetime.

Initially dreamed up and pieced together in my small London flat (more recently swapped for a shed at the end of my garden in Margate), the project has grown into something I could never have imagined: 76 zines, five books, ten years of naked calendars, apparel, exhibitions and a long-running club night.

More than 800 men have stood in front of my camera during that time. I’ve photographed men in bedrooms, hotel rooms, living rooms, gardens, forests and on beaches. Some arrived brimming with confidence and couldn’t get their clothes off quickly enough. Others were visibly nervous and needed a little encouragement before they relaxed. I’ve photographed men who absolutely knew they were sexy and others who seemed to have no idea. And perhaps that’s the biggest thing sixteen years of meat has taught me: sexy is incredibly difficult to define.

It’s certainly not a body type. I’ve photographed pretty much every variation of the male body over the years, and some of the most memorable photographs have come from men who probably wouldn’t have made it through the door of a traditional modelling agency. Confidence can be sexy, but vulnerability can be too. Sometimes it’s a look straight into the camera; sometimes it’s the moment between photographs when somebody forgets I’m there and simply becomes himself.

I’ve also watched the way gay men present themselves change enormously. Bodies, beards, hair, underwear, tattoos and clothes have all gone through their cycles. New tribes have appeared, old ones have been reinvented, and our ideas around body positivity and representation have – thankfully – broadened. meat has changed with all of that, although the basic idea behind it really hasn’t. I’ve never been particularly interested in perfection – I’m interested in real men.

Looking through sixteen years of photographs to make the new book has brought that home more than ever. There are pictures I’d completely forgotten taking alongside images that still feel as immediate to me as the day I shot them. There are men I photographed once and never saw again, and others who came back in front of my camera again and again. Some became lovers, many became friends, and a few have been part of my life for most of meat‘s sixteen years.

The archive has become something I never really intended it to be: a record of a particular corner of gay life across sixteen years. There are changing bodies and fashions in there, of course, but also bedrooms that no longer exist, clubs that have closed, friendships, relationships, parties and people at different moments in their lives. Looking at the earliest photographs now, I’m as interested in all the stuff happening around the naked man as I am in the naked man himself.

Putting the sixteen-year book together has meant immersing myself in all of that again: old favourites, previously unpublished photographs and a huge amount of newer work. And rather than making me feel nostalgic for some golden period of meat, it’s made me excited about what I’m doing now.

Over the past year, I’ve continued meeting and photographing new men. I recently spent a week in Paris photographing twenty guys for a forthcoming project, and as I write this, I’m putting together the BARE 2027 calendar. I’m still getting messages from men asking to be photographed, and I’m still getting excited about meeting someone new and wondering what we’ll create together. That’s probably why, after sixteen years, I haven’t become bored with it.

Every man I’ve photographed has left a little mark on my heart. Some were part of the project for only a fleeting moment, while many remain in my life today, something I never take for granted. And then there are the people who have bought the zines and books, worn the T-shirts, danced at the parties and supported an independent project for sixteen years. Without them, none of it would have lasted beyond that first little zine made in my London flat.

So here’s to the exhibitionists and the shy boys. To the stories, the laughter, the friendships and the sexiness. To the bedrooms, living rooms, hotel rooms, studios and outdoor spaces that have played host to hundreds of meat shoots.

Sixteen years feels like something worth celebrating. The new book marks that milestone, but it certainly isn’t the end of meat, far from it.

Here’s to the next chapter.

Order meat: The First Sixteen Years now – a brand new retrospective coffee table book