The morning wood after

Photographers of the nude figure are often drawn to setting their models in ruined buildings, empty factories, abandoned warehouses, and the like. The reasons are pretty clear: Placing a naked person against such a backdrop confronts the viewer with a host of sharp contrasts — lifeless shapes versus breathing biology, angular edges versus soft curves, hard surfaces versus supple flesh, rough textures versus smooth skin; impenetrable steel versus vulnerable nakedness, and more.

But beyond the artistic, sensual, and visual impact, there is the fantasy of living out those contrasts: What if, for example, you awoke to a post apocalyptic world where you were the last soul alive? How would it feel to be walk among the ruins of humanity naked and exposed? What would it be like to stroll nude through streets and buildings in a world that previously required you to be covered up? And what if clothing wasn't even an option — how would it feel if all semblance of apparel had been swept away with the rest of humanity? Would you feel vulnerable or empowered? Afraid or aroused? Or maybe all of those at once?

This month's
photo set explores
the balls-out antithesis
of exposing naked flesh
to a hard-edged
world.

Those are some of the concepts and sensations I explored with photographer Andrew Adam Caldwell a few years ago in some of Seattle's older and more picturesque neighborhoods. All photos were shot outside, in public. But we managed to find a day and time that made us feel pretty alone in a mechanistic world of falling brick and aging mortar. I was cold, naked and vulnerable — but with a cock almost as hard as the surfaces we traversed.

Most of us can't explore such scenarios in real life. But this month's photo set, Apocalypse nude, might give you a sense of the balls-out antithesis of exposing naked flesh to a hard-edged world. Look for it now in the Nakedism photo galleries.