A wonderful exploration of the Human form and expression. These pictures envoke memories and desires of past experiences and future encounters. An expansive four-year study of some of the best work by Aurthur Tress. A must have for anyone who enjoys the male form and beautiful artistic expression in their home.

The cover of this recent collection of the photographer Arthur Tress's work, was well-chosen to represent his work. A man, seemingly in ecstasy, clutches two protruding metal dowels, while surrounded by an army of others - or, perhaps symbolically, an army of lovers.

Spanning forty years of work, this collection shows Tress to be a major interpreter of the masculine form, but not just the form - the photos also manage to embody the masculine aura in its totality, from weakness to lust, power to vulnerability - even a sweetness of spirit is evident. Embodying these traits is difficult enough for a writer or a filmmaker, who have words to describe them, but the ability to make them so palpable in still photography makes Tress's work all the more impressive.

Dangers, both real and imagined, are evinced in the juxtaposition of metal to naked skin - in one photograph, a man holds a saw tooth blade to his crotch, in another, a man dangles his scrotum over a bicycle chain. Water, stone, and even a handgun represent other dangers to the male boy and psyche.

Included with the more haunting, troubling images are also works of unusual, sensual beauty. In "Bella Donna," the flower of an exotic plant protrudes from the naked, furry buttocks of a young man. In "For Toughest Pots and Pans," a man sits facing away from the camera, his naked buttocks dripping with white dishwashing liquid, with which he has squirted himself. On the opposite plate in the book, a naked, headless model is shadowed with fern fronds, his uncircumcised, very large penis drooping languidly between his thighs.

Tress demonstrates a remarkable ability for romance and sensuality, yet his photographs are not especially erotic - at least not in the usual sense. Instead of using many beautiful, well-hung men to create the feel (the obvious method), phallic symbolism abounds in Tress's work. Particularly effective is "Boy at Poolside," in which a nubile youth clad only in a bikini seemingly bows in reverence to an enormous, phallic shaped boulder in the distance. But Tress also uses symbols that others might not see - such as a prow of a model ship, pointed at a man's nipple, or an oversized ceramic rooster held tightly to a man's crotch.

Juxtapositions also are an important part of the photographer's work, with inanimate objects like paintings and sculpture often posed with their subject, or a subject in a like pose. Art imitating life, or still life with real life? Tress turns both concepts inside out.

In my opinion, though, one of the best photographs, and the most evocative, is the one that opens the book, entitled "First Recognition." In it, a tousle-headed boy ponders his own reflection in a mirror. Who can forget that time, when we first looked at ourselves and saw what we looked like to others? And how unreal it felt, to mesh our inner self with our outer self? Tress captures that moment brilliantly.