Outcast: “David Hurles – Old Reliable in Living Color”

As a visual record of youthful male ambitions, the photographs of David Hurles vibrate with self-assurance and dangerous sexuality. Hurles, whose own history, recounted in this book, resonates with this same kind of gutter intensity as the images he created, began documenting drifters, grifters, and hustlers — men from America’s hard underbelly — in the 1970s, through his legendary company Old Reliable. Hurles’ style was unmistakable, downplaying technical polish in favor of the unvarnished emotional truth of his muscular, tattooed subjects. His ability to communicate with his models helped him elicit erotic presentations that no other photographer of his era could capture consistently. Outcast tells two fascinating stories — that of a determined gay artist who pioneered the dark mirror image of the “tasteful,” artistic male nude; and a mosaic portrait of backstreet America via a group of anonymous young men who drifted into his life and before his camera, to briefly entertain and excite gay men before vanishing.