(pôr'nə-graf'ik)

A deadpan behind-the-scenes document of California's adult-film industry by San Francisco photographer Ken Probst, its title printed on the black cover as a dictionary phonetic spelling — (pôr'nə-graf'ik) — that turns the loaded word into a specimen for examination.

Probst was hired to shoot publicity stills and video-box covers on pornographic film sets, and once inside began photographing everything the product shots leave out: elaborate sexual set-ups and actors waiting between takes, crew, lights, and longueurs, all given the same unblinking weight. The 48 duotone plates, by turns comic and unsettling, observe what the publisher calls the banality of manufacturing desire. A short story by the novelist A.M. Homes, "Ballad for the Beautiful Boy, or Why I Like Photography," accompanies the pictures. Twin Palms published the landscape-format hardcover in December 1998 in a first edition of 4,000 copies, alongside a deluxe clamshell edition of 50 signed and numbered copies containing an original print.

Probst (1952-2010) worked largely within the gay adult industry, and the book sits alongside the queer documentary photography of its decade long out of print, it is now a landmark of 1990s erotic photobook publishing, in the company of Twin Palms' other transgressive titles.