Interview of Eric Kroll

Q: Eric, you went from photojournalism for leading magazines to erotic photography. Relate the journey and how come the metamorphosis?

I'm in my early 50's and in 1971, making arty nudes felt superfluous. I left New Mexico and moved to New York City and became a photojournalist. It was a political move. I did pieces on Chicano muralists for Natural History magazine and a piece on mercury poisoning involving the Objiway Indians in Canada that appeared in New Times magazine. I continued to do my brand of nudes but didn't think I'd find a market since `spread' shots frightened me. My eroticism was more fetishistic. In 1988 I met Annie Sprinkle, the performance artist and she introduced me to leather g-strings and extreme high heels. She also introduced me to an editor at High Heeled Women magazine that paid me for MY erotic images. The photos ran big and the layouts had more power than the tiny images I was doing for Vogue and Der Spiegel. At first I used a fake name - Eric Aperture, but I realized, soon enough, that I liked the way my photos were being used in small newsstand girlie mags.I became one of the first among my peers to ask/demand that my real name be run with the photos. William Burroughs grew up wanting to write for `True Confessions' and I grew up wanting to shoot for softcore porn magazines like Adam magazine.



 Q: Is this new Transformations of Gwen series more books of erotic photography like Fetish Girls or Beauty Parade or is there any difference?



Transformations of Gwen is more personal and sexual than `Fetish Girls' and `Beauty Parade'. The Gwen book centers around one person and has narrative. It s an ongoing series of volumes. I think al three books are equally erotic. The difference is, the Gwen book is more explicit in depicting sexual acts! Gwen felt comfortable having sex and role-playing in front of the camera and it turned me on seeing her play with other partners. That combination is rare. I couldn't be in front of the camera and behind the camera at the same time. Because of Fetish Girls and Beauty Parade, many models came to me to be in my photos to be in my books. If the chemistry was right between Gwen and a model we shot it. It helps that we lived together. I'd have an idea or meet a model that wanted to play in front of the camera and instead of having to call around looking for a model, I only had to call across the room. Knowing the people involved I'd suggest a beginning scenario, dress the participants from my fetish wardrobe-had to be extreme heels, and let the people improvise. I met Gwen at Bondage A Go-Go, a rock and roll club with an s/m play  area, south of Market street in San Francisco. I meet many of my models there. She became more than just a model. She's my MUSE.



Q: How come you chose Amerotica of NBM, better known for comics, for these?



 I wanted to publish my more sexually explicit images to illustrate a story that either actually happened or was totally a fantasy. People commented that, when looking at the photos in Fetish Girls and Beauty Parade, it seemed that something was about to happen or had just happened in the photos. I wanted the Gwen book to show what happens. My friend in San Francisco, Michael Manning(Spider Garden, Tranceptor), publishes with NBM and I saw his books and thought his audience would like the Transformation books with adult photo narratives. They re fantasy fables and reality mixed together to stimulate the imagination.



Q: You've mentioned in bios a love for some erotic comic artists, such as Eric Stanton and Bill Ward. How have they influenced you?



I masturbated to early Irving Klaw published drawings done by Stanton, Willie, Bilbrew and Ward. I steal from everybody including the grand master comic artists. I want to grab with my photos some of the line that comic artists are permitted to cross. If they can draw a woman peeing on a man why can't I be allowed to photograph such a fantasy? These comic artists stretched my sexual imagination. Didn't they do that for everyone? The more extreme the better.



Q: In your search for material and inspiration, you've rediscovered a few photographers. One in particular will interest our audience: Bunny Yeager. Tell us about that.



 In 1980 I spent a year on the road living with my then wife, Lynka, in an RV. In Washington state, at a University bookstore, I find a copy of Bunny Yeager's How I Photograph Myself. I bought it and thought about Cindy Sherman's art self-portraits and compared them to Yeager's. I also remembered the hard-ons I'd get at age 15 from Yeager's photos of young beach bunnies. I found the photographer in Miami. It took me months to convince her to let me repackage her photos into a portfolio of limited edition images Bunny Yeager's Girls of The Fifities. She insisted we include two shots of Betty Page. The response from around the world to those two shots of Betty was enormous. This was in 1987. The interest has only grown. This lead to discovering that Weegee the Famous had shot Betty Page ( I later produced a portfolio of these images), Peter Basch had shot Betty Page and others less well known. In my life, I have spent many hours in the dark with Betty Page negatives. Very nice. Very stimulating.



Q: Besides the subsequent books in the Gwen series what else are you working on?



I have one of the largest collections of vintage erotica in the world. I am busy doing a book on this collection. What makes this project interesting is incorporating all the aspects of erotica that enter my world. The pvc catsuit I got in Barcelona, the rubber evening dress from Syren in Los Angeles, the ancient vibrator I bought in Williams, California and the million transparencies and black and white prints I bought from a warehouse on the westside of Manhattan. What is erotic comes in many forms and I like them all.