Elska magazine is very unique. Each issue the creative team travel to a different city around the globe and photograph gay men who live there. Each participant shares a story about their life.

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So far there have been issues of Elska created in such far flung places as Bagota, Haifa, Cardiff, Yokohama, Mumbai, Brussels, Taipei, Istanbul, Reykjavik, Berlin, Helsinki, Lviv and Lisbon.

Soon the magazine will be coming to Australia for the first time, and they’ve chosen Perth as the city to feature. OUTinPerth spoke to creator Liam Campbell about his work.

Explain to us the ethos of Elska.

The main goal with Elska is honesty and positivity. It’s about going to a city, meeting some local guys, and letting you get to know them as if you were there travelling with us. Essentially this is done through photography, using a very natural and intimate style to capture moments with the guys.

Then each of them writes a little story, something like a diary entry, to bring the intimacy level a little deeper. And then finally the goal is achieved by the types of men featured themselves, who unlike those shown in most mags are not models or celebrities, yet they’re still just as beautiful and as compelling.

How did the idea for Elska magazine come about?

Well, even though I studied photography at college, I didn’t go on to use it professionally. I actually ended up becoming a French teacher and later changed careers to be a flight attendant, which I did ‘cos I loved to travel.

When on layovers all over the world, I got back into photography, and I started organising photoshoots, building a portfolio of portraits. I then started attempting to do a side hustle as a fashion photographer, but when I started to do jobs in fashion I found the atmosphere disgustingly pompous and cruel. I hated it, but I still wanted to take pictures and I still wanted to travel… then the idea for Elska just came to me one day.

I’d travel to different cities, shoot local men, and package them into a little mag. The first issue, in Lviv, Ukraine, was an experiment, and it worked. So I kept on and have now done fifteen issues in fifteen cities so far.

Where does the name come from?
The name Elska is the Icelandic word for ‘love’ in the verb form, like “I love Perth” would be “ég elska Perth”. As for why I chose the word, well, it came from comments people made that the “models” I chose were so “imperfect”. I found it kind of insulting and also perplexing because I still found them totally beautiful despite not being “perfect”.

I thought about how the people you love also have imperfections, but you love them anyway, and that the men in magazines are so “perfect” that they’re no longer even real. I wanted to show that imperfection is even more beautiful, because it’s real.

How do you go about choosing and photographing your subjects.

More and more guys come to us. Every day we get around three or four random messages from people saying they’d like to take part if we come to their city. But we’re still pretty small and unknown so I have to fill in the gaps mainly from using gay dating sites and apps.

Most messages I send get ignored but a few respond and then they tell their friends, and spread the word. Some cities are more difficult than others – like it was easiest to find participants in Bogotá (Colombia) and hardest in Yokohama (Japan). We’ll see what happens with Perth!

Image: Felipe C in Bagota, Columbia. 

Will this be your first trip to Australia? What do you expect Australian gay men to be like?

This is my first trip to Australia for Elska, though I’d been to Sydney and Melbourne briefly in my flight attendant days. Perth is totally new to me though. I don’t really know what to expect apart from that I’m assuming the guys will be very easy-going, probably quite tanned, and perhaps a bit rude in that sort of way that Australians think is humour!

Which have been your favourite cities to via the magazine so far?

Reykjavík is very special to me, since I chose the name Elska from the Icelandic language. I’m also very enamoured with Mumbai. It was just such a wildly different city than I was used to, an incredibly hectic, crowded, hot, and exhausting place but filled with people that were somehow still completely positive and friendly. When I look back, I can picture every day very clearly. That’s how impactful it was for me.

Image: Joni L in Helsinki. 

What are some of the more memorable people you’ve met along the way?

Let’s see. There was Jack S from Cardiff who snuck us into Cardiff Castle where he worked for a shoot in secret rooms that tour groups didn’t have access to.

Then there was Kolbeinn H and Sveinn S in Reykjavík who were both half naked outside in freezing temperatures while cars drove by and beeped at us.

And then there was Tusan C, also in Reykjavík, who insisted that if he was going to do a naked shoot, that me and my assistant would need to be naked too. It’s funny how quickly you forget you’re naked. At the end we were just sitting around drinking tea and chatting, totally un-self-conscious.

Quite a few of your subjects choose to have a nude portrait taken, how do you make someone feel at ease for this process?

Well first of all it’s up to each guy what he wants to do and how much he wants to show, so there’s no pressure there. And I think once they meet me, they see I’m quite chill and harmless, so they relax. And honestly most of the time, I find people more nervous shooting in clothes out in the streets with people around than naked at home in private. I can’t say I exactly understand why, but you can see in a lot of our images that the guys look a little more at ease when nude.

Image: Mine H in Taipei

If someone wanted to be featured on the pages of the magazine how would they go about it?

The easiest way to get would be to go to the website and fill in the form there. We’ll be in Perth from 8 – 14 March and will be aiming to do about three shoots a day.

Do you have the coolest job in thew world?

Well I think the simplest answer would be “yes”, but I certainly could do with more time, more money, and maybe a few upgrades to business class for these long flights! I’ll probably arrive in Perth half dead, so I hope there’s good coffee about!

Find out more about Liam Campbell and his work at www.elskamagazine.com

Graeme Watson