Barbara Nitke’s Classic Behind-the-Scenes Porn Photos Are High (and Hard) Art

April 16, 2014
MCBEARDO

Longtime Fleshbot idol and erotic arts inspiration Barbara Nitke is a behind-the-camera legend of adult film. Alas, Nitke's niche was not as a sinematic writer, director, or cinematographer; instead, the Virginia-born, Alaska-raised visionary chronicled the heady, sweaty, lusty, loony, hairy, occasionally scary, and all-around liberating days of 1970s and '80s New York City big-screen porn movie production as a documentary photographer—brilliantly.

Nitke's sumptuous photo book American Ecstasy compiles her work from the sets and behind-the-fucking-scenes of numerous X-rated cinema classics, and features iconic blue screen bangers such as Sharon Mitchell, Vanessa Del Rio, Nina Hartley, and (shockingly in-shape) Ron Jeremy.

Lucky residents of Brighton, England can presently view Barbara's photos on display at the One Eyed Jacks Gallery. The lone caveat: please delay your own one-handed jacks until you get home.

Now word comes that Barbara is to speak at the Lost Lecture series. Lost Lecture is globe-hopping program of events that crops up in secret locations in London and Berlin. Now it's to be held in New York, where Ms. Nitke continues to live and work at the School of Visual Arts.

Barbara Nitke is a one-of-a-kind talent, a sharp and witty thinker, and a charmer. By all means expose yourself to her body of work by way the aforementioned projects, as well as her classic episode of the miraculous Golden Age of Porn podcast, The Rialto Report.

Fleshbot loves you, B.N., and we thank you. Keep on clickin'. Forever!