BOB MIZER. AMG: 1000 MODEL DIRECTORY

It's Raining Men: Two volumes and two decades of top physique models

In 1945 Bob Mizer began taking photographs of strapping young men on Muscle Beach in Venice, California. In December of that year he formed the Athletic Model Guild to market his photos, and “physique photography” was born. Before Mizer there were body builders and men who photographed them, but AMG photos, even those of the same men, were different, subtly provocative, discretely aimed at a gay audience. They weren't nude, but showed as much as the law allowed in 1945.

In 1951 Mizer launched Physique Pictorial, America's first indisputably gay magazine, bringing his photos of top straight body builders to grateful readers worldwide.