What makes a male nude romantic, as opposed to merely erotic? The more obvious attributes might be soft focus, soft lighting, silk bedding, sylvan settings, roses, lace curtains, moonlight. Perhaps it is the look of a model, or the expression on his face; maybe it is the warmth of the embrace between two lovers, or the longing in a young man's eyes.

"The Romantic Male Nude" is the first anthology to bring together a group f distinguished photographers to thematically celebrate romance in the male nude.

Each of the one hundred extraordinary images in this book stirs the imagination to create a story around it - a story of youthful yearning or an idyllic day, a story about the blossoming love between two men, or even about the rapport between a photographer and his model.

The forty-two photographers represented here - among them Tom Bianchi, Michael Childers, Ed Freeman, Kobi Israel, Mark Lynch, James Spada, Reed Massengill, and David Vance - live and work in places as disparate as Israel, Gautemala, England, Cuba, Brazil, France, Hong Kond, Greece, Sweden, and Germany, in addition to the United States. Their diversoity proves that romanticism flourishes everywhere in the world.