Photos of Men in Love with Hugh and Neal

Britt East [00:00:02] Welcome to Not Going Quietly, the podcast where we inspire growth, beat down biases and get into all sorts of good trouble with your host, Britt East. No topic is off limits as we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose, and joy. So get ready to join us for some courageous conversation, because Not Going Quietly starts right now.

Britt East [00:00:30] Everyone, welcome to Not Going Quietly, the podcast for outraged optimists and heartbroken healers all over the world, where we surface life's searing truths in the name of radical togetherness. I'm your host, Britt East, and I have not one but two fantastic featured guests for you today and I can't wait for you to meet them. My guests are Hugh Nini and Neil Treadwell. They're collectors and authors of the book "Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love." And by way of introduction, I want to do something a little bit different today. I'm actually going to read a couple of lines from their book, from the intro of their book, to kind of set the stage, and then we'll bring them in, and then you'll get to see some of their amazing work. So I'm going to be reading from their introduction. Our collection, meaning them, began 20 years ago when we came across an old photo that we thought was one of a kind. The subjects in this vintage photo were two young men embracing and gazing at one another, clearly in love. We looked at that photo and it seemed to look back at us, and in that singular moment, it reflected us back to ourselves. These two young men in front of a house were embracing and looking at one another in a way that only two people in love would do. Dating sometime around 1920. The young men were dressed unremarkable. The setting was suburban and out in the open. The open expression of the love that they shared revealed a moment of determination. Taking such a photo during a time when they would have been less understood that they would be today, was not without risk. We were intrigued that a photo like this could have survived into the 21st century. Who were they and how did their snapshot and up and up in an antique shop in Dallas, Texas, bundled together with a stash of otherwise ordinary vintage photos? I'm hooked already. I can't wait to hear more about this and discover more about these photos. And I'm actually going to share some of these photos with you. So if you do have access to YouTube, there's a video version of this podcast. I highly encourage you to pop over there and see it, but if you don't, that's okay too, because we're going to describe the photos to you too audibly. So Q Nini, Neil Treadwell, welcome to the podcast. It's wonderful to meet you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Hugh Nini [00:02:49] Thank you for having us, Britt.

Neal Treadwell [00:02:50] Thank you.

Britt East [00:02:51] So tell us who you are, how you came to collect all these amazing photographs. And then why did you decide to publish them in a book?

Hugh Nini [00:02:57] Who we are. I'm a ballet professional. Or was I just retired? I had a 45 year career in ballet.

Neal Treadwell [00:03:03] And I've been in the cosmetic industry for 35 years, and so. And we've been together for 32 years. And as far as collecting it, we call it the accidental collection because we never, ever thought we were collecting anything in the beginning. We both had very busy jobs as we just got through saying what we were doing, and one day we found that we both had free afternoon after church on Sunday. And on the way home, there's actually an antique mall. So we decided to stop in as. But a little time there, we got separated from the very beginning and I found a box of photos which you were talking a little bit about, and in the midst of just some plain photos of homes, I found this photograph of these two guys that were in a loving embrace. And it was just it was amazing. I had never run across a photograph like this before. And so I went to the antique mall to find you. I found Tim, I showed him, and we just we thought it was just a really interesting photograph, and we'd say it looked like something that represented the relationship that we had, but it was 70 years older than what we were. So we took it up to the front desk. We bought it. We took it home, we shared a work desk at home, and it floated back and forth on that desk for about. And now it's I think it's, say on the desk for a couple of years. But, we didn't find the second photo. I was actually in California on a trip business trip, and I went into an antique mall. I came across a small glass spring that had etching always yours on it was to two guys and one, and, some type of uniform. And so that was a second one. But it was. It was something that we really didn't expect to do. We just we found them as we went along, and it probably wasn't it to how long before we went, oh my gosh, we have a huge collection.

Hugh Nini [00:04:55] We were years into it, hundreds of photos, probably before we actually realized that we were collecting photographs. Before that, it was just sort of happenstance occasions of coming across this photo in that photo and, and and like Neil said, we have very busy lives. So we weren't really, you know, paying very close attention to what we were doing. We call that our sleepwalking years of collecting.

Britt East [00:05:15] That's absolutely wonderful. One of the things I love about your book is it's so gorgeously produced and published. I mean, it's a book that's like you're meant to live with, and you can refer to these photos anytime you want inspiration or to get the sense of feeling and love. It's a it's a handsome book. It's a huge book. There's tons of photos that range in all different time periods and sizes. It's it's absolutely, beautifully done. In the book, you ask, there's very few words. I mean, and that's one of my favorite aspects of it. It's almost like you're the subjects of the photos are daring us to wrestle with our own emotions, all the projections we might put on them as we get these little glimpses of their lives, their tenderness, their sensuality, their nonchalance, their wit, wisdom, affection. And it's like sometimes they they're letting his son in on the joke, of this shared moment of intimacy. And sometimes they don't. Sometimes it's a little more of the Mona Lisa, kind of opaque smile. And we as readers are just, like, forced to reckon.

Neal Treadwell [00:06:24] Purely.

Britt East [00:06:25] With the photography in and of itself. What does it mean to be in love? What does love look like? How do we know love when we see it? What do I feel when I see people in love, especially as a queer person, where society is oriented towards our own loneliness? So I guess my question to you guys is, what do you hope your readers will experience when they view these photos?

Hugh Nini [00:06:46] Well, what you just said, in terms of the lack of, writing in the book, we did write a preface. And after the preface, we just let the photos do the talking for for us and for everybody else. We didn't feel like it would add anything to the experience for us to try to describe what people will see on their own when they look at these photographs of the book. They will have their own, approach to the photographs, their own personal experiences, life experiences, and that will inform how they see the photographs, themselves. And in terms of, you know what? We chose to go into the book. One of the things that Neil and I have, looked for, we always look for, and we did it instinctively. We didn't ever even talk about this, but we looked for it. And you said, how do you know when when you look at somebody. How do you know that they're in love? Well, we all know, when you see that person that you saw the day before they were in love, and then you see them on the day that they're in love, that's a very different face you're looking at on the day that they fall in that love. It just. Yeah, it's something that we say you can't hide if you're experiencing it and you can't fake it if you're not. And so in our collecting, we look at these photographs and we look for what we call that unmistakable look in the eye of someone who has a love or two people who are in love with each other. And many of the the vast majority of the photos in our book have that unmistakable look at those that don't have, poses or hand-holding or embracing or they're in bed together in their clothes, but in bed. Our book is not an erotic book. And or they're kissing one another. So, I mean, those are, you know, 100%, sure that these people are in love with each other, but the look often transcends everything else. And that's that's our defining moments for collecting a photograph.

Britt East [00:08:37] Yeah. You know, when I first heard about this book, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. They don't know if these people are in love or anything, but it's so true. I mean, when you look at these photos and we're going to share some with and I'm sure all of you will agree as well. It is unmistakable. It is unthinkable. It is absolutely obvious what's going on there, aside from all the secret signals and and conventions that you reference, just that look in the eye, it's it's just absolutely remarkable. Okay, so let's dive in. I'm actually going to share my screen here so we can take a look at some of these wonderful photos.

Neal Treadwell [00:09:12] This is the first photograph that we collected. it didn't make it into the book. We just like to show it because it it does add meaning to us. This is. You know, what inspired us? And it's the two young men, one holding the other one from behind. We're assuming we found it in Dallas or somewhere in Dallas, but in the garden setting photos just a little too dark and and not clear enough to be, put into the book. But it's a beautiful.

Hugh Nini [00:09:41] The first one, by the way, was taken in 1927. And on the back it says Walter and Herbert at work. Wow. Okay, so this the one that Joe was describing earlier, the glass frame that has always yours etched on to it. And, the photo on the right is taken out of the glass frame. You can so that you can see the fall, damage soldier and his boyfriend is basically what we're looking at. Okay, so this is interesting. This one is two men taken around, 1900, probably 1902 or 3. And, they're embracing in front of a mirror. You can see the frame of the mirror on the outer edges of the photograph in front of them as a camera, and this is what we call and maintain. Here's the first selfie taken by a romantic male couple. These two men are posing together. Camera in front of them. In front of the, the mirror. And you can see the man on the left is holding a squeeze ball in his left hand. And when you squeeze that ball, it's a there's a rubber hose attached to the ball and the camera and the air, trips the shutter in the camera, and they can take their own photographs. So selfies are not as new as we think they are. They were actually actually about 130 something years old.

Neal Treadwell [00:11:00] And what was the name of that?

Hugh Nini [00:11:02] Okay, so the man who invented this is Joseph Ferris, and this is called The fairies. Shutter Tripper was patented in 1903.

Britt East [00:11:10] So, guys, in your book, you ask the age old question, which I love about a tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it. It's like as if we as readers don't witness the love in these photos. Did the love really happen? Are the moments somehow made more real when they're borne witness? Does being joined in an experience, even in absentia, decades and decades later? Does it somehow make that experience more valid or more resonant? What is your thought about that? Did you guys seems like you guys wrestled with that question. What conclusions did you come up with?

Hugh Nini [00:11:43] Well, we came to the conclusion that, these trees that fell in the forest and nobody heard did make a sound. They did love each other. These couples, they were in love. And, the the beauty of this book and where we are today in this is simply that these, these couples who could never narrate their own lives during their lifetime, they were narrated by politicians and clergy and other people that were not friendly to their story, are now being narrated by them, and their couples are narrating their lives on their own through these photographs. Here we are. We loved each other. We existed. We mattered to one another. We matter to the world. And, it's it's long. It's long overdue. But, you know, the time has arrived and beautiful.

Britt East [00:12:31] You know, think it's like we all create agency when and where we can. And one thing all of these photos have in common, undeniably, at least in my experience, as in absence of fear. But at least in that moment, you know, it's so often I mean, it's not a book of victimization. It's, you know, so often when we come out, you know, to loved ones, the first thing they express, they project their fear for our lives on to us as if is this our lives as queer people, as gay men who never will be filled with tragedy, will be filled with loneliness and sorrow? But this is a book of love and empowerment. It's not a book of intolerable exclusion, you know? And, and and so to me, that's what's so real about it. That's why that's one of the reasons I would, frankly, love straight people to buy your books so they could witness the personal empowerment, the joie de vive, through the decades that, you know, as we claim more empowerment in our everyday lives. We playfully or romantically or intentionally, we naturally share that just like anybody else. And so I guess my question to you guys is, how can we as, as gay people do that? How can we claim more empowerment in our lives? How can we share our lives more fully with straight communities, whether through, taking our own photos or or coming out or, you know, living more vibrant lives? What are your thoughts on that to.

Neal Treadwell [00:14:04] To your point about the book? I think that it, it has, drawn both the, the gay community, LGBTQ plus community and the straight community. What happened when we launched it in 2020 during Covid? You know, the first thing was we you have to stay six feet away from someone you can't touch, someone you were covered your face. And what our book did was, show something that everyone was missing. Is that human interaction, the touch, the love. And it just happened to be presented with two men. So we have had a very large amount of heterosexual people, straight people buying our book, sharing it with their friends, parents buying it for their children. It's been more of a, like a unity kind of or just, you know, showing of a caring for each other. And we we continue to hear more and more stories about how it is, made a positive and a positive influence on people with their families and their friends. Just saying, we see you. We know that you love the way we do because we all love the same. It doesn't matter if it's two guys, two girls, a man and a woman. It's it's love is love, you know, to to the point about sharing your emotion with everyone else. She and I live a life that, you know, I get all emotional on this. We. We are the people that we are. We're no different. We don't try to put up in any perception that we want someone to say we love each other and it. For for who we are. We show our affection if we're walking down the street or sitting into a restaurant, and if we're.

Hugh Nini [00:15:42] Lucky that we live.

Neal Treadwell [00:15:43] In.

Hugh Nini [00:15:45] Texas, that would not have flown well.

Neal Treadwell [00:15:47] But if you if you don't have that fear, if you show the love that you have for each other and it's, without putting up any kind of offense or thinking you need to be defensive to someone, it comes across genuine. And it's amazing the people who will accept you for who you are.

Britt East [00:16:06] Yeah. But I also think that, you know, like, like you were saying, when you're safe and you and you feel secure, the, the, greatest thing any of us can do, or maybe the easiest thing any of us can do, to help queer youth today is to hold hands in public, to give public displays of affection so that we are taking up space. And, and, people are bearing witness to it because, you know, you never know who we are impacting with the photos in the book. I was really surprised that so many of them almost had this air of modernity to them. I expected, I guess, more quaint old timey. I had just had stereotypes and assumptions in my mind. But some of the photos are really artistic and striking. That could be hanging, and a lot of them could be hanging in a gallery. Frankly, aside from the historical importance, just purely for the esthetics of them, at least that's what I projected onto them. I was expecting all this, you know, old timey fashion and, you know, technology, and certainly that was an aspect to it. But there was this weird, inexplicable air of modernity, and a lot of it was in the eyes somehow, like I really felt, so connected to so many of the subjects, even though I don't know anything about them. And, you know, you alluded to this earlier, I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about them. About this. Do you see yourselves in these photos? What do you project onto them when you when you flip through this book, what do you feel?

Hugh Nini [00:17:41] You know, as you mentioned, at the very top of this show, the first photo we saw that we found, we we looked at it and it it felt like it was looking back at us and reflecting ourselves. That's what we're reflecting ourselves in the photograph. That was the connection that we had. And it was what kept us continuing to look for or stumble across these other photos that followed it. And, it was it was meaningful to us. There wasn't a kind of support for our relationship back in the early 1990s that there is today. And so I think we felt a lot of support from these photographs, sort of confirming, you know, what we were, what our relationship was to each other and what we meant to one another. We just found confirmation through these photographs. That's why it was personal to us and why we kept finding them, why we kept collecting them eventually and why we didn't. We didn't really tell anybody about these photographs or this collection. We have very supportive, friends and family. Very. They would have loved to see this collection, but we never showed it to anybody and never talked about it, never mentioned it because we in some strange way, we saw people would think we were on tour collecting them. Now, that probably doesn't make any sense to anybody listening to this, but that's what we thought. Yeah, no, we never actually discussed that with one another. The, the, the Obi of sharing it with anybody never came up. It just didn't. And it was about 15 years into the process that we independently surveyed our our collection. Neal was out of town. I looked at it, I was teaching late or rehearsing late, and he looked at the collection. We came together about a week later and said, oh my God, you know, this is something substantial. We're not sure what it is, but it didn't feel like it could any longer stay just between the two of us. We had to find a way to share it with another three people that might be interested in it. It turned out to be a lot more than three.

Britt East [00:19:36] Yeah, yeah, judging by the response the book has gotten, it's obviously, you've touched on, you've really hit on, I don't want to say a nerve, but like a heart space that was really yearning to to feel connection. And I love the way that you talked about coming out of Covid, in that lack of physical connection that so many of us had, the epidemic of loneliness that gay men in particular are experiencing, still experiencing, you know, the book is incredibly touching. Would you describe a little bit more some of the the patterns, the secret signals, the common poses people use to communicate their love that the love and photographs back when it was illegal to be queer.

Hugh Nini [00:20:19] While you're looking at this all. So at one point we had, a backlog of photographs that needed to be cataloged, and it was probably about 100 of them, and I had them sitting on a large table in our apartment, and I didn't know what to do with them. We had been putting the photographs and photo albums that we thought this to harm them. A nice way and a respectful, you know, loving way. We're putting them in these albums and we started to develop patterns. Neil went and looked at this group of photographs and came up with all of these interesting, you know, like handholds or embraces or or gestures or faces or whatever. And he's going to show you one right now.

Neal Treadwell [00:20:56] But what what we saw was they spanned from the 1850s all the way to the 1950s. That's not like Instagram or, you know, any social media have now going, oh, that's awesome. You do that. It was just something that was organic that these people were doing. But one thing that we were really surprised about, I'm going to hold up the book on this two page spread here so that everyone can see with beautiful finding a lot of book graphs with two men under umbrellas and it's. We came to the realization because I think the earliest one was around 1860 and went up into around the 19, 19 teens and.

Hugh Nini [00:21:39] 18, 2019. Yeah, yeah.

Neal Treadwell [00:21:42] Before the, before the rainbow or anything that, you know, signified that, you know, gay or in love and it's two men affectionately under an umbrella. And so we kind of like that it shows up protection or showing that they are a couple because of how they are very, affectionate to each other and under an umbrella. And so did you watch it? And then there's some that are curious, you know, so they also had friends with them as well. And this one's really cute that two ladies with them. Yeah. Which this goes to another point is that we actually had have show that people had friends, they had allies, whether it was family, it was friends or a gay photographer or someone, you know, it wasn't as bad as we think it was back then. You know, then.

Hugh Nini [00:22:33] It's not as good as we think it is today either.

Britt East [00:22:35] So to your point, you know, the world has not always been so saturated in photography. Now that, you know, with smartphones, it's just like it's democratized the art, which is really cool. But, you know, before the advent of this technology, it was a lot more of a production to capture and develop a photographic image than today's. You know, now we have all these HD cameras and, you know, video recorders built into our phone, and pretty much everybody has them. But, you know, I got thinking about when I was looking at a book about the process of preparing for conducting, developing an image and, and how that must have impacted the decision making process, the staging, the preservation of these photos. It got me thinking, like, maybe this photo looks accidental and off the cuff, but I can't help but wonder if it's actually staged in a really beautiful way and not don't mean that sort of where I just mean like, it's it's fascinating. We we don't know maybe what's happening on the other side of the camera from the photographer's point of view, are these are these, you know, the the photos are the photographer's friends of the subject's relatives. Is it a professional relationship? It probably varies widely from photo to photo. I don't know. What were you guys thoughts on on the possibilities, the, potential for, you know, having gone through a highly prescriptive staging process versus taking photos on the fly.

Hugh Nini [00:24:13] Well, just to back up a little bit prior to the invention of photography, you had to capture the eye of an artist or be paid to paint someone's portrait.

Britt East [00:24:22] Good point.

Hugh Nini [00:24:23] Which was which? Yeah. Which is not democratic. Photography sort of democratized. Yeah. That that process in a way that, our camera, our camera phones, democratize, even even further. But in terms of, you know, who was taking the photographs and what was that experience like? Yeah, they are posed because you had a limited number of photos you could take. You couldn't take 100 and then decide on which two of the 100 that you thought were good. You had to make it work. And so yeah, the the subjects oftentimes are posed, especially in the earliest part of photography, they're very posed. But in terms of, you know, being able to do this on your own without a cell phone, as we pointed out earlier with that, with the first selfie of a gay romantic couple. You could do that as early as 1903. And people had their own cameras that same time. And so they were able to, to do that on their own, they would have to go through a developer. But then you get into, I don't know, when the photo booth started, we're not sure. But when photo Booth was introduced, you didn't need a photographer, you didn't need a developer. All you needed was you two selves and you just step inside. You take the photographs and nobody knows anything for the wiser.

Neal Treadwell [00:25:40] There's no negatives, you know the strip comes out of the print or, you know, who knows where the negatives are, if there were any negatives in those machines.

Hugh Nini [00:25:47] But so there's more democracy in the early years of photography than had the people.

Neal Treadwell [00:25:52] But yeah, that's a great point. Yes. If you go back into the late of the 1850s to up into the 1900s, it's the ten type. So that was something that was I have one shot, you know, there was a piece of tin that was coated with chemicals. It was in a box. They lifted up the the top drawer, whatever you wanna call it, for a few seconds and then slit it back down, went back into a dark room to have it processed, and then they handed a piece of paper or, sorry, they handed the tin to the to the customer. And there's no negatives. So it's a one. The only thing. It's a one of a kind. And that was the Polaroid of photography back in the 1850s to their 1870s, 1880s. It was actually cheaper to do that than to, have something printed on paper.

Britt East [00:26:44] That's so cool. I had never heard of that. That's really amazing. I love that you reference the, the photo booth because it took me back to memories of, like, back in the day, lots of gay bars had these photo booth send them for obvious reasons, because that was our chance to participate in photography without punishment.

Hugh Nini [00:27:04] I never saw one, but, I probably should have seen what he's seen.

Neal Treadwell [00:27:09] Mine. I have stacks, but.

Britt East [00:27:13] Are you guys still adding photos to your collection?

Hugh Nini [00:27:15] Oh, yeah.

Neal Treadwell [00:27:16] So when we published the book, we had 2700 in the collection since then. Well, we've accumulated quite a few more. We're over 4000 now. Wow.

Britt East [00:27:27] That's incredible. What an amazing service that you're doing that I'm so glad and grateful they're ending up in your expert hands, so you can be stewards of them and take care of them. They're not lost forever. That's absolutely amazing.

Hugh Nini [00:27:41] Who would have thought? I mean, we had no, I literally had no idea what. Yeah. For the longest period of time, when we came up with the, the thought wasn't even an idea. It was just a thought of of having a book. We didn't know how to do a book. We didn't know anything about that process. And we learned a lot. It took us about probably 4 or 5 years to get from the thought stage to the actual here's a book stage. So it was, well, quick. But, all the publishers we talked to and they're the biggest names in the publishing business, they were all interested in doing this book. We went with our publisher in Milan because, a fun fact before I talk about our publisher, everybody who helped produce this book is heterosexual. We're the only two gay people involved. The, the publisher, Eric Gazelles, is heterosexual. All of his staff is, and, the color separator scanner, straight guy. John Doyon, the designer for the book. Heterosexual as well. There was no and there was no, learning curve for them. They saw the photographs. They saw the potential. They saw the message of what the what we titled the book loving. We were amazed that it survived all the way to publication, but they got it immediately. It wasn't there. You know, we didn't need nothing. It didn't require any explanation to them. They understood the message of the book. It it's not about sexuality. It is about the human emotion of love that we all share and experience in equal measures at the same way. And, so there was, you know, in, in terms of, it's broad outreach. It reaches everything in everybody. And, I forgot what I was leading up to. But anyway, for what it's worth, those are a few comments.

Britt East [00:29:22] That, that's wonderful because I had the same reaction. Like I said previously, I was like, oh, yeah, whatever. And, you know, typical. I work in marketing in my day job. So typical like J or whatever. And then I saw it. And then as soon as you as soon as you see the photos, there's something electric about the book. There's a, there's a real there's a vibe to it that is just I think it's because it's the condensing of all this love into one space, frankly. And so when you see the photos, I mean, there's just this electricity behind my eyes, regardless of the expression, whether it's euphoric or mischievous or or wise or mysterious, that, you know, there's just something that's you see it perfectly in the introduction. There's just something undeniable and and unmistakable. So do you have a vision for like, the next phase, or do you envision doing more books or maybe museum? You know, pieces or what are you thinking for the future of this collection?

Neal Treadwell [00:30:20] Well, we, we actually, and June of last year, 2023, we had the first exhibition and it was in Geneva, Switzerland, is Iran. And they had the largest opening and turnout of any exhibition at the museum. And it's the oldest museum in all of Switzerland. And we had it.

Hugh Nini [00:30:43] Was.

Neal Treadwell [00:30:43] Amazing. It was, it was.

Hugh Nini [00:30:45] Yeah. And there's the posters are plastered all over trains and busses and billboards in the city for.

Neal Treadwell [00:30:51] All over the country. That a yeah, one of this. Trains had the book cover and the exhibition plastered on the side of it, so it was going all the way from Geneva to Zurich and back. So they we.

Hugh Nini [00:31:03] Had no idea what this is, what to expect? Excuse me, what to expect. But, when we when we did the press conference the day of the opening, there were just tons of people there, and, it was kind of disorganized. And somebody from the museum counter. I'm so sorry this is so disorganized, but we never expected this many people to show up for the press conference. We've never had this kind of turnout before.

Britt East [00:31:26] And you broke Switzerland, I love it. Yes.

Neal Treadwell [00:31:31] It was great. It was 3000ft². We had over 400. We had more images than what are just in the book. And so it gave people to the time to see what actually the size of the photographs, because some of the photographs maybe a full page in the book, but they may only be an inch square, very tiny. And so to see what has survived for over 150 years and, you know, wondering what the what happened in that 150 years, how many hands did it go through? Was it with the same family the whole time? You have to to wonder, you know, what was not only the the experience, the two people in the photograph, what they experienced, the what is the photograph? You know, what journey did it take to find its way to us so that we could share these photographs with the world? So it's.

Britt East [00:32:22] Absolutely beautiful.

Neal Treadwell [00:32:25] We we are do we are working with we can't say where, but there is another.

Hugh Nini [00:32:32] Country, right?

Neal Treadwell [00:32:33] I guess we'll say what country in Australia, and there's interest. And so hopefully we'll have something to share within the next 3 to 4 months. Oh, as to when.

Hugh Nini [00:32:43] By next week or maybe next.

Neal Treadwell [00:32:45] Week. Yeah. So it could be kind of cool. And we are working on the book two. Book two is supposed to come out in 2021. We thought we would do it the next year, but based on what was going on in the world and then and then the success of this one and just getting it into people's hands, our distributor and all of our partners kept saying, let's just wait one more year. Let's just wait one more year. And then the exhibition happened. So that pushed it out another year. But we are looking at now the end of 2025.

Britt East [00:33:17] That's incredible.

Neal Treadwell [00:33:19] That's just.

Britt East [00:33:20] That's incredible. I just I, I wish you guys so much success. It's absolutely amazing. What does it feel like? It's like it's all taken on this life of its own. This collection. I mean, what does it feel like for you, too?

Hugh Nini [00:33:33] We were we were in a cab going to the Uber, going to the airport the other day for, a speaking engagement at a college about our book. And, you know, we're we're very ordinary people. We have very modest expectations about, you know, anything in our lives. And, that day, like, a lot of things happened that we needed to talk about, and we were just kind of musing and marveling and sort of, just, just. Not astonished that our conversations are now, okay. The museum in Australia reached out to us today and we need to get a response to them. And CNN wants to do a story. And those are the kind of and we have to talk to Eric about book two. We have a meeting set up for the next week. Those are I mean, that is so not reflective of our lives at all.

Britt East [00:34:29] I love it. And it just goes to show you, like when you engage with your passion, you have no idea where it's going to lead you. And I hope that your stories, inspirational to our audience, not just the photography, of course, that's front and center. But also the story, your story, your personal story that that you've followed your hearts and you did this project for yourselves. And then you looked up one day, and you, you had this undeniably important collection that had a sense of urgency behind it that propelled it forward into the world. And now you're, you know, like you said, CNN and Australia and Switzerland today show all this stuff. I mean, it's that's absolutely, absolutely remarkable. Do you have any favorite photos or does it feel like you're choosing between your children?

Hugh Nini [00:35:14] It is a little bit, but we do have favorites.

Neal Treadwell [00:35:16] So I'll I'll go first because.

Hugh Nini [00:35:19] You know, he's already got the book open.

Neal Treadwell [00:35:20] Now it's you know, if I had the opportunity, this was one of my favorite ones before I, before I had a story behind it. And it's something that you said about the photographs, about their pieces of art. And I look at this photograph that I'm getting ready to share with everyone as a, as a, as a piece of art as well. It's about two inches by 3.5in long, and it's an on a picnic. There's a loaf of bread with a knife in it. There's a young man laying over on top of, his friend, with for those who aren't looking at the photograph, who has gorgeous hair and the guy on his laying on his back has his head a little bit covered up, but it just looks like a painting that you would see in a museum. Yeah. For the photographs that are taken, they, you know, it was one shot. They didn't do cropping or anything else. It was, you know, you got whatever was on the roll, a camera on the roll of film when you, had it processed. So with this photograph, it was beautiful. When we launched the book, the there was an article that was in The Guardian in the UK, and a professor from Vienna reached out to the Guardian and said, I know who's on page 210 and 211 in this book. Can you get us in contact with the authors? They reach out to us. We said yes, we had a conversation with him and he said, the two guys are Duncan Grant and Rupert Brooke. Rupert Brooke was a famous poet from the 19 tens. And I wrote of, okay, and he's the one with the gorgeous hair. And Duncan Grant is a famous, painter from the UK. They were both members of an art colony that was called Bloomsbury Colony in the. And now I got it right. It, and, and so his question was, do you know who took the photograph? Because we dated it around 1910, and he agreed to that. So it's possible that there was a very famous photographer who also took the photo.

Hugh Nini [00:37:19] Lytton Strachey is who is so supposedly thought to have taken the photograph.

Neal Treadwell [00:37:26] So but we're looking at it and, you know, this is one person's opinion. So, you know, thank goodness we have both. So we do the Google search. There is a slight cut in his eyebrow of Rupert Brooks. And when you look in the photograph you see the same thing. His ear matches. And of course he has more hair than anyone deserves. So, for anyone who's out there and can't see us, I have no hair. My name's Neil. I'm bald. Hugh has a lot of hair, so, you know. So what was great was about two months. Three months later, there was a guy who just did his thesis. Just whatever you want to call it. Papers in college on, Duncan Grant. And he said, you know, on page two, ten and 11, you have a picture of Rupert Brooke and Duncan Grant. He said, I know it's him because I've done his life history and what followed him. And so I know everything about him. So we're 99% sure that's who it is in the photograph. That's it.

Britt East [00:38:23] That is incredible. Oh my gosh, what a story. I mean, these are people that I know because I'm a nerd. And so I've read the poetry and I actually have volumes of Ruby Brooks poetry in our house, in our library. So I'm just totally, like, floored right now. I had no idea that it was that, because that was one of my favorite photos as well. Tell my favorite. Any for any other favorites you want to share?

Hugh Nini [00:38:47] One this is sort of mine. We actually both like both of these photos a lot, so. But this is, a photograph from a photo taken around 1900, and it's two young men who are a couple, and they're holding up a sign that says not married, but willing to be. And this is a prop that a studio photographer would have had, you know, in his studio that when somebody comes in for a photograph, he'll say, you know, put on these funny hats and I'll take a photograph and, hold up this, this tool, these are, these are fans or just lots of different props. And one of the props was this sign that a young single man would hold up and, it says, hey, ladies, parenthetically. Hey, ladies, I'm not married, but I'm willing to be. And this, this young couple saw the sign and and had the, the self-awareness to imagine themselves as that kind of a couple, a married couple. And they held up the sign that parenthetically says we're not married to each other, but we're willing to be. And so this is 100 and something years before this is even much of a conversation, much less a reality in our modern world, where couples like Neal and I can get married and other couples like us could get married. And, so, you know, it's their, their, their the presence of that they had about what the future might hold is amazing or something that took place probably about 124 years ago as of now.

Neal Treadwell [00:40:15] And there's actually we have five photos of the couple. And so two of them are in the book, and one of them, they're under an umbrella. Their fingers are locked in on the stem of the umbrella, and they're gazing into each other's eyes. And the other, other two are just as sweet. And then there's one that's just them looking straight on. But it tells the story. So, you know, people go, oh, no, that's just a sign holding up, wanting to marry women. But when you see the full, strength of all the photographs, it's it's unmistakable.

Britt East [00:40:44] It's absolutely undeniable. I will attest to that as well. Well, Hugh and Neal, it's just been such a pleasure to talk with you. We're going to put links to everything in the show notes. So, audience, you don't have to jot anything down. The URL for the website is loving1000.org, but like I said, we will put everything in the show notes so you can get all of their socials and and stay in touch with them. I encourage all of you to check out this book. It is absolutely phenomenal. It's on my coffee table. I've been living it with with it now for several months and just enjoying it with my husband and just marveling at the absolutely exquisite photography. It's such a handsome, you know, thick book that is. The photos are sumptuous and absolutely wonderful. It's such a gift that you've given to the queer community, to the street community, really, to all of us. And, I'm just so happy to have had the chance to talk with you both today.

Britt East [00:41:41] Thank you so much. You've been listening to Not Going Quietly with your host, Britt East. Thanks so much for joining us on this wild ride. As we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose, and joy. Check out our show notes for links, additional information, and episodes located on your favorite podcast platform.