Tom Bianchi: Fire Island Pines, Polaroids 1975-1983

I absolutely LOVE this book!!! Having come out in the late '70's, I barely experienced the cusp of the great gay heydays of that time before Aids came along and ruined the party. I never travelled to Fire Island, as I was too young. I did, however, have great friends in the small town of Macon, Ga. who became mentors to me, and who were well connected with guys who would come and visit from P'town and Fire Island. They would bring me 12 inch records and regale me with tales of their days in the sand and nights on the floors of the discos dancing to the pulsating beats. This book makes me feel almost as if I was actually there, in those days in the sun before the clouds rolled in. Bianchi has such a great eye, and this book really captures a time and place from a bygone era that sadly was stopped dead in its tracks all those summers ago. I sat and read the book and gazed at its pages yesterday afternoon while the afternoon sun streamed through the windows of our home in the mountains, and felt transported back to a place I'll never really know firsthand....still, this book is the next best thing. Cannot recommend highly enough this treasure trove of gorgeous photos of beautiful men living their lives freely and openly, and celebrating what it means to alive. Long live the dead....

As a long time aficionado of Fire Island Pines, I found Mr. Bianchi's book to be as magical and dreamy as the community itself. The photos are wonderfully evocative of a lost era. The special nostalgic feeling of those Polaroid SX70 images brought back a torrent of bittersweet memories of a place and time that has been nearly lost to history. But it is mainly the memories of so many beautiful friends who are now gone.... friends who introduced me to the Pines in 1979, and who guided me on my initial journeys to this mystical isle. And some of these friends are actually mentioned in his extraordinary text. And it is this text that accompanies the photos that I found most remarkable... and most moving. In fact I was moved to tears several times by the beauty of his prose, and the memories that were stirred up by it. He has found a way to bring back to me, in a profound way, one of the most life-altering periods of my life. And for that I am truly grateful. If you are a lover of this scrumptious sandbar that is two hours from New York City and a million miles from reality... or if you have interest in knowing something of it's history, get this book. I personally will treasure it forever.

Remembering things past, beautiful documentation of a time of freedom and celebration. I visited the Pines several times in the late '70s with my man. We both enjoyed being a part of a special world and felt welcomed everywhere we went. We camped on the beach, watched the sun rise, brushed our teeth in the rest rooms, swam, sunned, tea danced the afternoon away. The dance ended with "Thank you" by ABBA. This book brought tears to my eyes when reflecting on a time of "innocence" for The Pines community and for myself as well. Highly recommended for the subject and for Bianchi's photographic style.

Tom Bianchi has put together a beautiful collection of photos of an idyllic time gone by, when gay men could be themselves on Fire Island beaches. At the time, it was a dream island in a sea of homophobia. For a few brief years before AIDS hit, Fire Island was a paradise on earth for gay men. These photos capture this magical time and place perfectly. A lovely book for your coffee table. The Pines are still a popular resort area for gay men, but we'll never see times like these again.

The story behind Tom Bianchi's first experiments with photography are fascinating. A friend gave him a polaroid camera in the mid-70s, and he quickly started experimenting and taking pictures of his friends, his environs, and the men (and women) in those environs. His candid, unposed, yet structured and framed photos grow in sophistication over time. The photos in this book cover photos taken by Tom at the gay resort town of Fire Island on Long Island from 1975 to 1983, the beginning of the AIDS crisis. Looking at these photos from the early 80s, you would never guess that some of these men may have left sick friends at home in Manhattan, or Boston, or Washington DC while the enjoyed the sun of summer on the Atlantic coast surrounded by their tribe, maybe pretending or ignorant that a plague was about to descend. Many of the men in these photos are likely no longer with us, which makes it more of a treasure to see these men enjoying their summer and life while they still had their health, their strength, and smiles on their faces. The reason for four star instead of five is that I think this book would have been much better if it had been printed much closer to the size of an individual Polaroid photo. Some pages in this book have multiple images per page, and some of blown-up versions of the Polaroids, but many pages have a single image surrounded by large white space. It makes the book feel more like a museum show, and not an intimate object you can hold in your hands, like an actual book of original Polaroids. The size of the book creates a distance between the viewer and subject. A smaller, hand-size book would have been much more personal with more of an impact as we look back on the lives of these carefree men before the plague changed all of our lives. None of the subjects of the photos are credited. RIP to the men (and women) that we have lost, and that we continue to lose still in 2019 here in Fire Island, in the US, and elsewhere.

A great work of art. The fact that Bianchi was able to capture the beauty of the nude (gay) male body on Polaroids is a miracle in and of itself. These shots, as a collection, seem to tell a story of the tail-end of a bygone era. There were no iphones, not even laptops. No internet. No digital cameras. Just guys hanging out and having a wonderful time enjoying their sexuality together. HIV/AIDS was not even in public consciousness during the period when these shots were taken. The moments are crystallized beautifully. I'm sure Bianchi had a good number of 'bad' exposures along the way - there was no manual focus with those cameras. I look forward to re-reading this book many more times. I will admit, the male foot is one of my favorite parts of the anatomy and it was the striking cover photo that made me decide to buy the book. There is something amazingly sensual about male feet and although there aren't many pics that prominently feature guys' feet, there are enough barefoot shots to satisfy me. Is this a stroke book? Probably not. But what is cool is just mentally transporting/teleporting back to 1975-83 and placing myself amongst those guys and sharing in their good time.

I am a longtime Tom Bianchi fan. His books are so wonderful, that I blindly buy them knowing that handsome men will be contained within. These old Polaroids are a departure from his typical books, but I loved it nonetheless. The playfulness of these bare balls men running around are engaging and beautiful. I look forward to Tom's next book.

I bought this book for a couple of reasons. One being the fact that I was on Fire Island during that time and I may have been in the photos. Two, my partner at the time, was there and I might see him in one or more of the photos. I lost him in '94 to AIDS. Lastly, I just really love the quality of the polaroid photos of that time. There's a softness and color to the images like no other photo technique. I was not disappointed. Tom captured a time and place that will never exist again. So with all of that said, I highly recommend this book for anyone that can appreciate the beauty of the men and artistry of Tom's work.

Uno dei miei migliori acquisti su Amazon. Fotografie senza tempo che raccontano di spensieratezze. Grandi spazi ambientali ed emotivi racchiusi in foto che sembrano tanti dettagli di unica immagine. Consigliato.

Me encantan estas polaroid

I really like the positive air of the photos, it has something of the atmosphere of the past of the "Old Customs" on the Romanian coast.

I've been wanting to get this book for awhile and finally made a pandemic purchase. Boy am I glad I did! It's such a beautiful coffee table book that takes you back to a time before AIDS, when gay men hung out at Fire Island Pines without a care in the world. Filled with glorious photos and stories, this is a time capsule that will help take you away from our current times to a place full of light and wonder.

This is a really gorgeous book. You might find it having maintained the original Polaroid format takes a little getting used to (just one or two select images are blown up) but it makes sense, and if you return to the images, you begin to find details and synergies in the layout that reward you. Bianchi's text is wistful, but also entertaining and insightful at times. The book's faults are faults of its time - the lack of faces of colour, and also the fact that the Pines' "ugly sister" Cherry Grove, is not mentioned even once! It is a document of beautiful white men and their sense of privilege, but then it was all taken away from them in a devastating manner...