Tom of Finland

Another version of Tom of Finland by Joe Oppedisano. Joe Oppedisano is a photographer and he has done several styles of photography, yet those are gay oriented. In addition, his website also presents many photos of his work. I, by the way, was fainting, when I had a look in his website, and especially the guy in the first photo looks really hot.

Here comes the real Tom of Finland, Tom of Finland’s real name is Touko – because he was born on 8 May 1920, on the south coast of Finland, and May in Finnish is “Toukokuu”. His homeland had been independent for just three years when Touko was born, and outside its few cities the country was still rough and wild. The men who worked in the fields and woods, the farmers and loggers, were true frontiersmen, every bit as rough and wild as the countryside.” Yes, that was his background and it could derive to become his inspiration. “At the end of 1956, at the urging of a friend, Touko sent his secret artwork to a popular American muscle magazine, but, being cautious in those paranoid times, and anyway thinking that “Touko Laaksonen” was too tough a name for American tongues, he signed them,”Tom”. The editor loved them. The cover of the Spring 1957 issue of “Physique Pictorial” features a laughing lumberjack, drawn by “Tom of Finland”. It was a sensation. Touko became Tom of Finland. The rest is history.”