Part magazine, part art project, part sociological experiment, Elska launched in 2015, declaring its dedication to “sharing the bodies and voices of a diverse cross-section of men from LGBTQ communities around the world, presented through honest photography and personal storytelling.”
Each of the 43 issues so far has focused on the men of a specific city (the latest is Istanbul, Turkey), celebrating them in erotic, but not always naked or sexual photos and publishing essays they’ve written in their preferred language, then translated into English.
The man behind the project is Liam Campbell, who has visited each of the 43 cities featured. He takes most, but not all, of the photos. We asked him how he came up with the idea for Elska, what he’s learned about gay life from it and to talk about two cities that fascinate him.
You’re based in New York, but I don’t think you’re American, and I know the name of the magazine is Icelandic for “love,” so could you put it all together for me?
I love to travel, and Iceland was the first foreign country I went to. I went on my own when I was 18 and it was just a brilliant discovery. As a gay teenager it was an opportunity to be completely me and not have the expectations of anyone around, no one who knew me. I didn’t feel any discrimination, any sort of homophobia, so it made me fall in love with Iceland and travel. So when I came to make this project, back in 2015, I thought, well, maybe an Icelandic name. Elska was something anyone could pronounce, even if they didn’t know what it meant. I grew up in London, but my husband got a job in New York about two years ago. I can work from anywhere so I just followed him.
What gave you the idea for this magazine, and photographing queer men around the world?
I did photography in college, but then never used it. Anything in the arts seemed far too risky when you need a salary. The main career I had was a teacher, a French teacher in secondary school. At some point I needed a change so I decided to take a break and become a flight attendant. That reinvigorated my love for travel, but photography as well because I was going places I never imagined, like Kuwait or Nairobi. Doing more photography, I realized that I liked shooting scenery, streets, but I really liked doing portraits more. I’d arrive in some city for a layover after a flight, then go on one of the apps and see if I could find someone to be a model. And we would do that in the street, then perhaps at home. With clothes in a fashion-y way and then nude in a less fashion-y way. Then I thought, well, maybe I could make a book of this or publish something. Then I had the idea of doing Elska, where each edition would be one city and several men that I met there.
How do you pick which cities you’re going to feature? Do you pick places you personally want to go? Or because you’ve found guys there who want to participate?
It’s a mix. Where I want to go is the least important factor. Number one is that I do six issues a year and I want there to be a diversity of geography in that. If I’ve just done one in Asia, then the next one shouldn’t be in Asia. Then I listen to what people say, particularly if people get in touch and say, “If you ever come to my city, I’d love to do a shoot and write a story for you.” I keep a list of that and I go, well, I’ve got a bunch for, you know, San Francisco now, so it’s time that I go there.
You wrote on your blog that Montreal was full of eager beavers—you dedicated two issues to the city. But maybe in other cities guys would be more reticent?
Montreal was certainly one of the easiest. But you know, I’ll look at my map and see places that are missing. For example, I saw that I had a huge gap in Central Asia. A few months ago, I published an issue on Almaty, Kazakhstan. I usually try to make contact with people in advance: “If I came, would you be interested in this?” I was looking at Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan next door, and people were not committing. It’s stressful going somewhere with so few people who tell me in advance they’re willing to do it. I normally need 12 people, at least ten. But I decided I needed to do it, so I just went anyway. I basically just used the apps to tell people what I was doing and asking if they were free that afternoon, “We can meet at this corner and we can do it.” And it ended up being easier than a place like Montreal.
Why do you think that is?
My request is so unusual. They don’t have many foreigners visiting. The LGBTQ+ community is somewhat closed and you have this foreigner coming in and doing this magazine that you never heard of. It might sound like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And they’ll try it. If I go to a large western city, especially one with a huge gay scene, I’ll have people tell me, “You’re the third person this week who’s asked if they could do naked pictures of me.”
Do you think that gay and bi men in different cities have ways of being in the world that reflects their cities?
I do find that the less known and maybe even more homophobic a city is, the more open and kind the LGBTQ+ community is. I suppose when you live in San Francisco or London, you become blasé, and you take for granted the privileges and freedoms you have. Maybe that makes people not in the best mood all the time. I’ve gone to Bangladesh, for example, and it can be a very dangerous place to be gay. People were taking certain precautions—one guy didn’t show his face, that sort of thing. But they really wanted to be part of this. They were really excited and wanted to show me around the city. To give another example, when I was in Casablanca, in Morocco, I had no trouble meeting people. A lot of them didn’t want to do a photo shoot because they didn’t want to risk being recognized, but meeting to do interviews, no problem. But I had a real tough time with everyone else in Casablanca. I had to leave my first hotel after a night because the security guard clocked what I was doing and why I was meeting this guy in the lobby when we were having a chat. He figured out we were gay and he made us leave and was issuing threats. The next hotel in Casablanca was also tricky. But the people I met with were lovely.
When you arrive in a new city, what do you do to get yourself oriented?
I’m quite fearless in this regard. I’ll go somewhere and really not have even looked at the map. I just figure things out. I’ll usually take the first morning or half-day off and take a walk around wherever I’m staying. If there’s a metro, I’ll figure out what’s the nearest station, where’s a place I can meet people.
What’s a city that really intrigues you?
Warsaw, Poland. I am half Polish and I lived in Poland back in 2013. It was a conservative country back then, a big element of Catholicism there. But the gay community was really growing and there was a lot of confidence throughout society. When I returned to Warsaw in 2022, they had a new government and things had become much more conservative and traditional. People living there were telling me, “Oh, I would have done this a few years ago, but now I could lose my job.” It was one of the most difficult places I worked. People were cancelling or just hard to find. One of the main meeting places when I first lived there was a big square in the south part of the city, called Plac Zbawiciela [Saviour Square]. It had this huge arch with flowers over it, which looked like a rainbow. I’d meet friends there and we’d go off to the bars. But now it’s gone. It had been burned down multiple times and they decided not to rebuild it. That’s a metaphor for what’s happening there.
Are there things that are still appealing about Warsaw?
I’m quite into architecture from Communist times. I like that greyness. I like the concrete. I grew up eating a lot of Polish food, hearing Polish spoken from certain relatives of mine. When I’m in Poland, suddenly it’s, “That guy looks like my uncle.” The sounds and the food take me back to being a child. It feels so comfortable for me. I would tell visitors to start in Old Town. People like to mock it because it’s not so old—it was destroyed in the Second World War, but rebuilt perfectly. Maybe it looks a little too clean because it was rebuilt, but it’s gorgeous. There’s a restaurant called Czerwony Wieprz [Red Hog] (Żelazna 68, 00-866 Warsaw) which has an over-the-top Communist-era theme. It’s actually quite elegant if you can imagine a themed restaurant being elegant. It serves classic Polish food, meals from the past. I would recommend that place. It’s also almost next door to a gay sauna, which is interesting.
Your most recent issue spotlights Istanbul. What were your impressions of it?
I was a bit intimidated by it at first. My lack of planning before arriving in a place did bite me, because I got up my first morning, went to go to my next shoot and realized that this city is completely massive and that there’s sea everywhere, and there’s not great transport between the European and Asian side. I realized I had to take a ferry and that seemed very scary to me at first. I ended up taking ferries constantly. The most wonderful thing about the Istanbul ferries are that it’s just like taking a bus or train. You sit on the deck with the breeze and someone comes along to offer you tea.
The other thing about Istanbul is that there are cats everywhere. More stray cats than anyone could possibly imagine. You go to a coffee shop and you can’t find a table—I mean, all the tables are empty, but all the chairs have cats sitting on them. People love them. They’re not seen as a nuisance. People give them food and water and are stopping to give them a cuddle.
In terms of queer spaces and nightlife and that sort of thing, I couldn’t tell you. I think it’s best just to try and meet people using the apps, talk to people, and they’ll know a place for you to go because the places change all the time. I certainly didn’t see anywhere with rainbow flags outside. People told me that things have gotten more underground. But I think that the liberal part of Istanbul is fighting really hard to maintain that spirit that they always had, but they’re doing it in a more discreet way. I didn’t find it difficult to meet people at all for my work. They were quite bold. They were quite daring. They were excited to do it. I think they like to be rebellious.
Is there something that the guys you photograph have in common? Obviously they’re not shy because they’re posing for erotic photographs and they’re writing essays.
It varies a bit between cities. For example, in Asia, there’s some of the strongest sense of not being good looking enough. The beauty standards are some of the highest I’ve ever seen. It can be a challenge convincing people that you do belong in the magazine. “You’re quite lovely even if you don’t look like this person from whatever K-pop band. But generally the guys I work with are a little less worried about what others think. Even if you’re not going to find Elska on the shelf at the supermarket, there’s a sense that somebody might see it and you might be ridiculed. They have to have a willingness to shrug it off.
You shoot some guys in their homes. That can be as intimate as exposing your naked body to the camera.
That’s true. In Asia quite a lot, with people living in small apartments, they often don’t want to be seen there. But shooting in my hotel room can be quite boring. People will tell me, “Oh my God, my place is so messy now.” But messy is interesting. I like clutter. I like a really busy photograph.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
