Wesley Stacey; Rennie Ellis
Sydney: Pontiac, 1972.

Rare early erotic photo book by Australian photographer Wesley Stacey (1941-2023), issued the year before he co-founded the Australian Centre for Photography. A period document of liberated sexuality and countercultural aesthetics, the work pairs Stacey’s intimate colour photographs of a young couple (shot in settings including a cave, penthouse, pool, bedroom, and beach), with the sensual poetry of fellow photographer Rennie Ellis (1940-2003). Stylistically rooted in the late-1960s and early-1970s Australian bohemian milieu. Exceptionally scarce: a single holding recorded in Trove and OCLC (Curtin University). The work is otherwise unrecorded in writings on either Stacey or Ellis. The only public reference to its existence appears in a 1976 ruling of the New Zealand Indecent Publications Tribunal, which described it as “another publication consisting of photographs of sexual intercourse with a small amount of text. It is serious in intention, though not didactic, natural and restrained in presentation with a straightforward text. The photographs depict basic variations of normal intercourse without any of the tasteless or debasing acrobatics which have marred other similar publications… Having regard to the changing times and standards and the dominant effect of this publication the tribunal considers that a restricted classification in this case is not necessary. The tribunal classifies this publication as not indecent.” (The New Zealand Gazette No. 117, 18 November 1976)