Mitchel Gray Brings New Dimensions to Art and Bodies in Photography

For the past 35 years, Mitchel Gray has made Photography his passion, and now he has brought it to a new level. 
As an accomplished fashion, beauty, and lingerie artist, he has always loved shooting bodies, and now has brought creativity plus balance into beauty into focus.

"I sought to find the athlete doing natural movements in their professions. Everyone sees sports stars, but we see the outside," Mitchel says. 
"What was going on under the uniform, the padding? That is what I show through my lens."

Doing celebrity portraits for years brought me to this place where the athlete can show the whole range of athletic abilities in a series of shots of the athlete as natural as they wish to be. 

Normal body shots have taken on creativity, a beauty, and agility, and a Mitchel finesses it into a gloriously beautiful picture. A swimmer, a roller derby girl, a kickboxer, an archer- what will be see?

“Bodies In Action” is an ongoing photographic series that Mitchel Gray began in late 2014. The concept behind the series is to illustrate what the bodies of great athletes are actually doing under all the equipment, padding, and uniforms while they are performing their sport, in a uniquely artful, dramatic, and informative style. 

All of the photos are made at Mitchel’s studio in New York City. He employs a distinctive, exacting, lighting approach that is designed to emphasize musculature, action, and grace. “The lighting is key,” Mitchel clarifies.

There is one more aspect to these photos that make them truly a “first” in the genre – in each photo in the series that appears to have two people in it, there is actually only the same person shot in opposition to them. 

This approach allows Mitchel to emphasize two sides of the same body in one frame, seamlessly and within the construct of the action. Many of the subjects are Olympians or Olympic hopefuls, and all are gifted athletes. 

Mitchel has enjoyed the cooperation of the U.S. Olympic Committee and the New York Athletic Club in the creation of “Bodies in Action.

“This method of shooting looks as if there are two people fiercely engaging and it is the same body, the same movement. It’s a full 360 shot I am doing,” Mitchel explains. “Offense to defense. Creative lighting – around and backgrounds add mystery to these shots. It depends on the individual, they are participating in the moment and they make it theirs.”

Elements of the series have already been featured in the National Art Museum of Sport, and there will be a gallery show for the series in New York on August 10th Opening through September 8th at The Elga Wimmer PCC Gallery in the Chelsea Arts District.

Mitchel Gray is a photographer, videographer, and an author. He has to his credit two best selling books, The Lingerie Book and Lingerie Fantasies (St.Martins Press) and has illustrated many more, particularly in the active lifestyle/health and fitness field. 

He has photographed over sixty magazine covers, thousands of magazine pages and images  pages both in the fashion and beauty industry and the sports and fitness world, including Men’s Health (all editions), Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health Muscle (Germany), Muscle & Fitness, Runners World, Bicycling, Fitness, and The Sporting News, including hundreds of advertising pages for various clients around the globe. 

Much of his portrait work in recent years has focused on sports celebrities ranging from Tom Brady to Derek Jeter. His Fine Art work has been show in galleries in both the U.S. and Europe.

“I go into the shoot with one notion, and something else can occur. I leave the door open for something to happen,” Mitchel says. What will come through?

*Photographs courtesy of Mitchel Gray.

Playboy’s Incredible Influence on the American Music Scene

The remarkable and historically accurate book Playboy Swings: How Hugh Hefner and Playboy Changed the Face of Music, author Patty Farmer explores the remarkable way Hugh Hefner’s efforts resulted in a legacy that continues to influence the American music and entertainment landscape. 

“The Playboy phenomenon was not just about sex and glamorous women, it was more about lifestyle and music,” Farmer says. “The finest jazz, in particular, was a personal passion of Hefner.

Farmer, who was given access to Hefner’s personal archives, created a well-documented and illustrated chronicles of the decades of musical events and performances with musicians and artists and people who became legends in our history.  

Hugh Hefner and Playboy, the glossy magazine he published, may best known for introducing an entire generation to the beauty of the female anatomy.

But truth be told, one of the most lasting impressions and important impacts is his role and contributions to music in America.

For almost two decades, Playboy was the largest employer of entertainment—singers, musicians and comedians—in the country.

He supported and promoted jazz musicians from the very beginning in writing, on stage, and even with his own record label. The very first issue of Playboy, graced by the stunning Marilyn Monroe, also contained a detailed feature story about Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. His emphasis on musicians transcended racial divisions and opened up social dialogue and discourse in ground-breaking ways.

To celebrate Playboy’s fifth anniversary in 1959, Hefner produced the first Playboy Jazz Festival in Chicago. His TV show, "Playboy's Penthouse" aired nationwide from 1959 to 1961, and “Playboy After Dark,” from January 16, 1969 to 1970. In the 40 worldwide Playboy Clubs, he showcased jazz musicians and provided black entertainers invaluable exposure in a defiance of segregationist laws and attitudes of the time.

In 1962, Playboy published the first of the iconic Playboy interviews with Miles Davis (conducted by "Roots" author Alex Haley).

Aretha Franklin played piano and sang at the Chicago Playboy Club when just 18 years old. It was her first professional singing job outside of church.

Playboy's Penthouse broke all the rules with Hef's integration of races. Nat King Cole appearing and sitting on the couch with a white woman- Rona Jaffe--to discuss her new book was scandalous and resulted in both networks and sponsors dropping the show.

Farmer’s insights into this amazing chapter of American cultural history is told through interviews with those involved present in the actual events, including Hugh Hefner, and his Playboy cohorts, and the cadre of jazz artists, performers, show business legends and entertainers who performed at the Playboy venues, and thereafter became well known around the world.

Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski enjoying opening night at the London Playboy Club. Photos courtesy of Playboy Swings.

The opening night crowd for the London Playboy Club, in 1966, was as famous and attractive, as one could imagine. A short list of the attandees included: Julie Christie, Ursula Andress, Roman Polanski, Michelangelo Antonioni, Sidney Poitier, Laurence Harvey, Peter Sellers, David Frost, Peter Cook, Kenneth Tynan, Rudolf Nureyev, Woody Allen, Lee Radziwill, and many, many others.

Playboy Swings: How Hugh Hefner and Playboy Changed the Face of Music

Patty Farmer

With contributions from Will Friedwald

Complied through interviews with hundreds of people who were on the scene throughout Playboy’s rise, fall, and on-going renaissance, Playboy Swings carries readers on a seductive journey through the history of the empire―all the while focusing on the musical entertainment that made it unique. Hef’s personal passion for music―and his belief in it as a cornerstone of the Playboy ethos―has expressed itself in a wide range of media over Playboy’s 60-year history, and all of it comes alive in these pages.

Famer takes the reader from the inception of the Playboy empire through the 1959 jazz festival, to the opening of club after club.

With approximately 60 black and white photos, and a complete Playboy music reference guide, readers will think of music, not just Bunnies, when thinking about Playboy.

Throughout the book, it is the artists who do most of the talking―and they have a lot to say about the golden era of Playboy entertainment.

For more information visit http://patty-farmer.com/

About the Authors

Patty Farmer is acknowledged as the leading expert on all things pertaining to music, entertainment—and the entertainers—of Playboy. 

She’s also a businesswoman and former model, and has followed the entertainment industry as an insider, as well as an avid fan and archivist all her life. Her work draws upon a lifetime of friendship and socializing among personalities and celebrities around the world.

In her previous book, The Persian Room Presents, she transported readers back to the halcyon days of New York City nightlife. Patty splits her time between New York, Texas, and France.

Will Friedwald writes about jazz and popular music for The Wall Street Journal, where he has written the weekly column The Jazz Scene since 2010. 

He is the author of eight books on music and popular culture, has received ten Grammy Award nominations for album notes and production, and is internationally recognized as a leading authority on jazz and adult pop music, as well as Broadway shows, jazz and pop vocalists, big bands, and classic American pop. 

The BOOK:

List $24.95 Hardcover, $16.99 Kindle

320 pages 6.3 x 1.2 x 8.9 inches

Publisher: Beaufort Books (November 30, 2015)

ISBN-10: 0825307880 ISBN-13: 978-0825307881