The Photography of Yves Paradis
Born in Brittany in 1955, Yves Paradis is a French photographer known for his softly rendered black and white photographs which 
presented an idealized, timeless vision of gay life that differed from the prevailing gay photography of the period. During the 1980s, his work appeared regularly in the most popular gay periodicals of Europe.
The son of a farming family, Yves Paradis spent his formative years in rural France. He was introduced to photography at the age of thirteen by one of his teachers who recognized his struggles with writing. Given a space in the family’s attic by his father for a studio and dark room, Paradis was able to experiment with different techniques and develop his own images. His first photographs were portraits of his friends taken on holidays and, later, fellow soldiers during his national service in the army.
Paradis worked during the 1970s as a photojournalist with a focus on reportage-styled images of current events. Although he still experimented with 
homoerotic compositions, Paradis did not at this time considered art photography an option for a career. In 1979, France’s first commercially published gay magazine, “Gai Pied”, began its publication. Founded by journalist and activist Jean Le Bitouz, the magazine derived its title from a multilayered French pun that came from the word “guêpier”, meaning hornet’s nest. Paradis submitted a series of photographs he had taken of two soldiers kissing on an army tank; these images were accepted and published as a spread in the magazine.
Beginning in the 1980s, Yves Paradis worked regularly with “Gai Pied” and other European gay publications. His work featured images of sexually attractive men, not necessarily physically perfect, portrayed in realistic and romantic settings. Paradis did not champion the bar and club scene but rather found models through the gay press and random visits to the French provinces. In 1991, the first collection of Paradis’s photography, “Jois de Vivre (Joy of Life)” was published in London by Aubrey Walter. Soon after the volume’s publication, Paradis stopped 
photographing images and concentrated on individually printing his compositions. In 1998, a second edition of “Jois de Vivre” was published by Éditions Aubrey Walter, GMP Publications.
After a thirty-year hiatus, Paradis produced a new series of photographs in 2021, a collection that continued his original sense of design and disposition. His work is included in numerous private and public collections, including the National Museum of Wales and the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, United Kingdom. Individual works by Paradis are available through East London’s Henry Miller Fine Art as well as auction house Barbarossa Maison de Ventes, both which are focused on masculine art.
Notes: The Gay Men’s Press, founded in 1979 by Aubrey Walter, David Fernback and Richard Dipple, was the forerunner and the source for the Editions Aubrey Walter imprint which published Yves Paradis first collection of photographs. A short history of the GMP can be found at: https://gmppubs.wordpress.com/a-short-history-of-gay-mens-press/
Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Yves Paradis”, Portrait for Henry Miller Fine Art
Second Insert Image: Yves Paradis, “Jean-Paul et l’Acropole”, 1986, Gelatin Silver Print, Henry Miller Fine Art
Bottom Insert Image: Yves Paradis, “Le Jeune Homme aux Pied Nus”, 1986, Gelatin Silver Print, Private Collection