Beautiful

Happy New Year

What better way to end the year with a wish for better things to come. Earlier this year a group of students organized a Kiss-In at the Parisian Trocadero square in order to give visibility to the fact that, yes, being gay is more accepted, but it still seems hard, if not impossible, to show physical affection in public. The action didn’t go unnoticed, and it has resulted in two more Kiss-In projects, in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and Peru. The next Kiss-In against homophobia is scheduled for Valentine’s Day 2010, and hopefully there will be even more participating countries, worldwide. Because there is nothing more beautiful than to be able to express your love with a kiss, for everyone to see.

With that thought we leave you. Have a wonderful New Year’s Eve and we see you on the other side.

Happy New Year! -B-

Beautifulmag thanks Sensitive.fr for the original movie clip.

BEAUTIFULMAG

BeautifulMag Cover Story | The Ugly Duckling named Israel Cassol

ONCE UPON A TIME DOWN ON AN OLD FARM, LIVED A DUCK FAMILY, AND MOTHER DUCK HAD BEEN SITTING ON A CLUTCH OF NEW EGGS. ONE NICE MORNING, THE EGGS HATCHED AND OUT POPPED SOME CHIRPY DUCKLINGS. BUT ONE EGG TOOK LONGER THAN THE REST, AND IT DIDN'T BREAK. WHEN IT FINALLY HATCHED A STRANGE DUCKLING GAZED AT THE BIG WORLD OUTSIDE. THE DUCKLING WAS GRAY AND CERTAINLY NOT PRETTY. HIS BROTHERS DIDN’T WANT TO PLAY WITH HIM AND HE FOUND HIMSELF ALONE.

Once a woman offered the duckling to become a model. But the ugly duckling felt worse than ever. He secretly wept at night. He felt they were mocking him and nobody wanted him. "Nobody loves me, they all tease me! Why am I different from my brothers?" Then one day, at sunrise, he wandered of the farmyard all the way into the streets of the Brazilian city Sao Paulo. And there, in a window, he saw a folder of a model agency, and recognized it as the same one the woman had offered before. He wondered if maybe there was some truth in what the woman had said and started to believe again. He did the test and learned that the model scout really liked him. He decided to give it a try. What did he have to loose? And so he went back to the nest to say goodbye to the other ducklings, and while doing that, he caught his reflection in a pond and what he saw amazed even him. Because he had shed his gray feathers and changed into a beautiful and very sexy swan.

Of course this is all fictional, and Israel Cassol never was such a  sad and unhappy kid. But when  he was offered the chance to become a model, he really didn’t think he was the right fit at first. After all, he had always been the ugly boy at school. But when he found an enthusiast sponsor in a model scout, he went for it and it wasn’t for long until he started to draw the attention from international agencies. In August 2002, Israel met Simone Riva, the Italian scout from Model Management who put him on a plane to Italy where he ended up working for four years. Israel found himself welcomed by well acclaimed clients, such as D&G, Frankie Morello, Prada and Vivien Westwood. Israel started to make name for himself, becoming a well sought after model, and found himself posing for photographers such as Cristiano Piu de Almeida, Andrea Pisapia, Jean Paul Barbieri, Steven Klein and Sandro Mantovani.

In the year 2006, Israel Cassol moved to the United Kingdom in order to study English. He followed a study in fashion journalism and decided to follow his dream of acting. After following a training he finally participated in a feature film last August, named The Cost Of Love, which will be released in January 2010. Currently Israel Cassol lives in London, where he divides his time between modeling and acting and preparing himself to enter a drama education at University. –B-

Photographers: Sandro & Maykson.
Model: Israel Cassol
Sandro & Maykson and Israel Cassol appear also in BeautifulMag's anthology book BeautifulVision.

SANDRO & MAYKSON | BEAUTIFULMAG

One Of Those Moments

THERE ARE MOMENTS IN YOUR LIFE IN WHICH YOU ALL OF A SUDDEN NOTICE THAT EVERYTHING AROUND YOU FADES OUT OF PERSPECTIVE, EVERYTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN IN AN OTHER DIMENSION, EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE THING THAT CAUGHT YOUR EYE. THESE MOMENTS ARE RARE. SOMETIMES THEY HAPPEN ONLY ONCE. BUT WHEN THEY DO HAPPEN, THEY WILL STAY WITH YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Swiss photographer Sandro Bross had shot Pascal and Philippe on several occasions already but never together. His artistic eye told him it would make a nice portrait series, but he also knew there could be one obstacle that could prevent the magic from happening. Blond Pascal is straight, and this could be difficult if the objective is to create a passionate couple shoot. But the boys proved otherwise and in fact, the series turned out to be not only passionate but also a testimony to what almost seems the discovery of a new love.

There are those moments in your life that will always stay with you. Moments you, in your unconscious mind, have always been waiting for but you only know it when it happens. A first kiss, the first passionate embrace, the knowing it might never happen again. Just imagine, it is New Year’s Eve and you join a party with many other people. Some of them you have never seen, or maybe only from a distance. You enjoy yourself and move through the crowd and than it happens. You see him, the man you know from your dreams. He is there and even though you know he isn’t for you, your heart starts to beat a bit faster. And when the evening moves on to that ultimate climax at midnight, you find yourself more and more drawn to him. And then, if he turns around and smiles at you, a smile full of tenderness and assurance, you know that this evening it might all happen after all.

You live the evening in another dimension. Happenings around you seem to have lost their significance. You only have eye for him, and there is only one thought in your mind: what if… Pascale and Philippe seem to live such a moment in this series of photographs. Beautifully captured by Sandro Bross, the two young men discover each other, move in and experience a moment of tenderness and discovery, a careful passion that will surely become one of those moments you will remember all your life. –B-

Sandro Bross is one of the participating artists featured in BeautifulMag's anthology book BeautifulVision, The Men of BeautifulMag.eu.

SANDRO BROSS | BEAUTIFULMAG

Island House Afternoons | The Final

AL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END, BUT SOMETIMES THAT END COMES TOO FAST. THAT CERTAINLY WAS THE CASE FOR LEVI POULTER AND RYAN FINDLAY. AND OF COURSE FOR NEW YORK CITY PHOTOGRAPHER WHO HAD THE PRIVILEGE TO BE FIRST WITNESS OF THEIR RE-FOUND FRIENDSHIP AND INTIMACY. IT ALL HAPPENED AT ISLAND HOUSE KEY WEST.

We have all seen it happening. That first look on each other after one year, those careful but intimate moments or rediscovering each other, the passion that followed and the relaxing time afterward, knowing that even tough the time to say goodbye is near, this is something that will stay forever. Levi Poulter had visited Island House Key West on many occasions, knowing that this popular tropical gay resort is the place to relax and recharge. But when he met Ryan Findlay last year, when he was staying a few days with his friend Scott, his vacation at Island House all of a sudden got a very different meaning.

Island House Key West is known for its relaxing atmosphere. The secure closed compound that gives you the feeling you are captured in a bubble, away from the rest of the world, where the fact that clothes are optional gives it that extra little sexual tension. Here you can find ways to enjoy yourself, to relax and to play, that are unique to the famous resort, and which you can not find anywhere else.

There are some who say that a vacation is not really fun unless you've kissed a man. If that is so, Levi and Ryan most definitely had a wonderful break. But good as it was, for Levi and Ryan the time to say goodbye nears. And even though it is never a moment of happiness the fact that you know that Island House Key West will always be there, waiting for you to indulge yourself in another relaxing vacation with your lover, it is good. There will be other Island House Afternoons. –B-

Photographer: Jason Rowan.
Models: Ryan Findlay and Levi Poulter.
Discover more intimate moments in the first, second, third, fourth and fifth part of Island House Afternoons and on the special Island House Afternoon website.

ISLAND HOUSE KEY WEST | BEAUTIFULMAG
ISLAND HOUSE AFTERNOONS | BEAUTIFULMAG

BeautifulMag Week 53-01 | Time After Time

Time is a virtual understanding and for us, human beings, something that can not be rationally explained is just really difficult to grasp. Hence we invented the calendar. There are many different ones, but they all are based on the same principal: boxing time. However, it really isn’t that easy after all. Cause you see, time is a constant that just isn’t that easily boxed by rational thinking. For instant, it takes the earth 365.2422 days to revolve around the sun. But what kind of year would that make. And so it was decided that the year has only 365 days, causing some extra time every four years, which we then conveniently added to February since this was the shortest month anyway. We named these exceptions leap years and decided everything was solved now. But, and here comes the rationalization again, we then realized that, even if every year that is evenly divisible by four is a leap year, the years that can be divided by 100 are not. Unless they can be divided by 400… To make this even more complicated, we came to realize that this leap year system solved a lot in aligning time with our invented seasons, but there was still room for improvement. And thus we ended up with an extra week added to a year every now and then.

53 Week-years happen, and they are as common as leap year, though less stable. 53 Week-years happen every 5 to 6 years which doesn’t seem very accurate considering the precise calculation we used to box time. It seems more like an after thought. Something like: oh it seems like we made a miscalculation so let’s add a few more days in December. The last 4 millennium we saw 71 years with 53 weeks. And this year, 2009, is one of them. Now why is this so important. It really isn’t, to be honest. It just gives us one extra week before we close the first decennium of the 21st century, and that is just a nice thought, since time is already moving fast. It also gave us the opportunity to add one extra cover in this year. One that overlaps week 53 with week 1, and thus creating a seamless bridge, not only between two years, but between two decennia. And if nothing else, that is just nice.

Oh… Happy New Year… ☺ –B-

BEAUTIFULMAG

Jinglebell Rock

BeautifulMag wishes all of you a wonderful and beautiful Christmas.

Model: Simon Howard. Photographer: Paul Reiffer.                                               Graphic treatment: BeautifulMedia/BeautifulMag.eu. 2009©

BEAUTIFUL CHRISTMAS | BEAUTIFULMAG

Naughty or Nice: An Elvish Truth

CHRISTMAS IS A HOLIDAY THAT IS SURROUNDED BY MANY MYSTERIES, WHICH HAVE RESULTED IN ACTUALLY NOT REALLY KNOWING WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT. SURE, WE ALL KNOW IT AS A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY, BUT IT MOST CERTAIN ISN’T THE BIRTH OF THE CHRIST WE CELEBRATE, BUT MORE THE MEMORY OF THE FACT THAT IT HAPPENED AT SOME POINT IN THE YEAR. THE DATE WAS ONCE CHOSEN BECAUSE OF PAGAN  ASSOCIATIONS, WHICH EXPLAINS THE TREE DECORATING AND GIFT-GIVING ACTIVITIES. AND WHAT ABOUT SANTA? ALL TOGETHER, A LOT OF CONFUSION AND QUESTIONS. BUT ONE THING WE KNOW FOR SURE. ELVES ARE REAL.

The general idea of elves is that they are tiny, dwarf-like with pointy ears, young and immortal, who, with their magical powers, have the ability to control all you hear and see. In  the old times it was believed they would guard your home against evil, but you did have to keep them happy. If not they could turn really nasty on you. Nonsense of course. Who would believe something like that.

First of all their looks. It would be unjust to generalize the looks of elves. They come in all sorts and sizes although we do admit in terms of gender, we mostly know them to be male. And then the fact they would be the guardians of your household. Ridiculous. Elves really are, as we all know by now, the helpers of Father Christmas. It is perfectly normal when you think about it. Santa really isn’t that young anymore and even though we might be persuaded to believe he actually could hand make toys for all of us in just one year, the fact he can spread them around in only one night, all by himself, is of course to crazy for words. Hence the elves.

Now there is one thing about elves we have to agree on. No matter what they are and how they look, they do have that ability to be a bit mischievous. Apparently it are the elves who keep the list of people behaviors throughout the year and it is said that the way they treat you all depends on whether you have been naughty or nice. For most this might mean you should do everything to keep your name from that list. But we think otherwise. We know what real elves look like and believe us when we tell you, there is enough reason to be as naughty as you can. Merry Christmas. –B-

Photography by Gert Kist, Malemodel.nl.

MALEMODEL.NL | BEAUTIFULMAG