HBO Video has recently released the documentary DVD, Thinking XXX, a behind-the-scenes look that recounts acclaimed New York photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ experiences while shooting photographs for the book of the same name.
Greenfield-Sanders told AVN.com that Thinking XXX is an hour-long director's cut version of the HBO documentary based on his widely recognized photo book in which he shot paired, large-format portraits - one clothed and one nude - of an extensive array of adult performers, from Nina Hartley to Jesse Jane, Sean Michaels to Aiden Shaw - straight to gay, legends to newcomers. Along the way, the performers also give a running commentary on how they begin their careers, how being in adult entertainment has changed their lives, and how they feel about sex and the industry.
“When I started shooting photos of the porn stars for the book, I decided to set up a video camera as well, because this was material that I had never shot before, and I thought it’d be good to document it [on film] as well,” Greenfield-Sanders said. “After a little while, I found porn performers to be much more complex and interesting than I had ever expected.
“After it was done, I decided to bring it to HBO.”
Thinking XXX also contains three hours including bonus footage of the performers themselves as well as the gallery openings in New York and Los Angeles, deleted scenes, contributing author tracks, and two photo galleries.
“This is more than just the film that I had cut to air originally on HBO,” Greenfield-Sanders continued. “At first, I had given them forty six minutes to air, and this is a full hour of footage with a lot of bonus material.”
In the interview, cultural observers such as Gore Vidal, Karen Finley, John Waters, Michael Musto, Faye Wattleton and Nancy Friday among others, offer a far ranging, perspective on pornography’s past, present, and future.
“I found the writer interviews particularly amusing and interesting,” said Greenfield-Sanders. “They sort of run the gamut from Lou Reed reading a poem that he composed entirely of spam [subject headers] to Gore Vidal’s serious discussion of sexual imagery.” Vidal also wrote the forward to the photo book.
“The interviews are basically all over the board.”
Greenfield-Sanders has 25-plus years of experience photographing musicians, artists, writers, actors and politicians. His recent mainstream work has included photographing President Bush and his wife Laura and Sen. John Kerry and wife Theresa for Good Housekeeping, as well as contributing regularly to several magazines, including Vanity Fair and Index.
“The entire project fell together so nicely…like I had planned it this way, all along.”
For more on Thinking XXX and Greenfield-Sanders, go to www.thinkingxxx.com or www.greenfield-sanders.com.
Pictured: Nina Hartley.
