The first erotic photographer Jacques Biederer at work
The pioneer and explorer of erotic photography and even video filming was the Ostra studio in Paris, which was founded by the Biederer brothers. Let's dive into the history of the genre. What now is a multi-million dollar industry once began as an art project in the backyard of Parisian life.
Jacques Biederer arrived in Paris in 1908 from Czechoslovakia and was amazed by the courtly manners, as well as the nightlife of the French capital. The final chord of the Belle Epoque, the World Exhibition that had just come to life, the Moulin Rouge, the Impressionists… Paris was called the capital of art and entertainment. There reigned very free morals.
So, Jacques, who was fond of photography, got used to the magnificent capital very quickly and found an unoccupied niche - an erotic photo. He opened a small Ostra studio on the Boulevard du Temple (by the way, the studio of one of the fathers of photography, Louis Daguerre, was once located nearby).
Boulevard du Temple. Louis Daguerre, 1838.
The first photo that shows a person is over there, in the lower left corner. In fact, the street was full of people and carts, but they were all moving and not included in the photo due to the long exposure (5 minutes). And the passer-by, whose boot was being polished, stood almost motionless all this time.
Very quickly, the Ostra studio and its products became incredibly popular. Jacques even called for his brother Charles for help. It was he who took a photograph of Jacques at work.
By the way, in case you're wondering, it's pretty soft erotica. There were girls were posing in lingerie. There was almost no full frontal exposure in Ostra's photographs. Here, for example, is one of the famous photographs of the studio - "Young motorist".
Although in later photographs the rearguard, so to speak, appeared in all its glory. In the 20s and 30s, the studio even began producing fetish postcards about spanking and bondage.
In the same years, several silent films with sadomasochistic themes were shot at the studio. For example, one of the first erotic films, Dressage au fouet (“Stroke of the Whip”).
Unfortunately, the history of the Ostra studio ended in 1942, shortly after the Nazi occupation of Paris. Both Biederer brothers were of Jewish origin and were sent to concentration camps where they died.
