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Nude women, hotel rooms and photography combine to create the perfect hobby

By Larry Knowles

April 24, 2006

San Diego--D. Brian Nelson, the San Diego man behind the blog “Hotel Room Nudes,” (http://hotelroomnudes.blogspot.com/), sits impassively at Peet’s Coffee in Hillcrest, looking out at traffic and passers-by while answering questions about his site. He has a cold this day and has apologized for conserving energy and being a bit hazy.

When the topic turns to the women he shoots nude and whether they’ve ever hit on him, however, Nelson breaks from repose and talks directly into the voice recorder:

After all, if they spent half their weekends in hotel rooms photographing beautiful young women in the buff they’d likely feel woefully, wonderfully inadequate as well.

In his blog, Nelson posts photos of naked women whom he’s shot in hotel rooms around the country, as well as commentary on each shoot. The women are there for everyone to see, and Nelson often provides a little background on them. Less is known, however, about the photographer himself.

Nelson, who currently works in the aerospace industry, was born in Minnesota and raised in North Dakota. He was offered a scholarship to Princeton, but turned it down to attend North Dakota State. (“I didn’t know any better,” he says.) After earning a degree in math from NDSU, he joined the marines and got stationed in San Diego. While in San Diego, he got married, had three kids, and raised them before getting divorced.

He got into photography about 18 years ago when his wife told him he needed to take a break from the engineering mindset during his time off from work. As a result, he took photography classes at City College in San Diego. It was during this time that he photographed his first nude female.

“I did nudes the first chance I got,” he says, adding that the chances were rare back then. He recalls raiding local modeling schools to find subjects and eventually found one in a Filipina woman, whom he only shot once. He remembers being completely at ease with the woman, in part because he was obsessed with the lighting rather than the naked woman before him.

The reason he shoots nude women? “I like naked girls,” he says succinctly, as though he’s explained this a thousand times to friends, family, co-workers, strangers, models and fellow photographers. He adds, however, “You can rationalize it by saying that nude women have been the subject of most art in western civilization, or you can say, ‘Because I can. I like it.’”

For several years, Nelson worked as a freelance nightclub photographer for SignOnSanDiego.com, and hung out at local goth clubs. Women at the clubs wanted him to shoot them nude, and some asked him to do bondage and fetish work.

He, of course, agreed. (“Rope is cheap, and I was a Boy Scout,” he quips.) After he established himself in the bondage scene, he would get fan mail from women who addressed him as "Mr. Nelson," complimented him on how well he understood submissive women, and asked him what kinds of knots he used.

The bondage and fetish helped solidify his reputation as a nude photographer, and these days most of the women come to him. Nelson is well known on the internet and a handful of photography web sites in particular. Through these sites, women have seen his work and know that a session with him can be a step towards a modeling career. Most of the women he shoots want to be professional models; some already are.

In many of the shots on Hotel Room Nudes, the women display an introspective world-weariness. The backgrounds of the women, Nelson says, vary. Most are college students. Some are strippers. One is a prostitute. “Most of them, you wouldn’t look at twice on the street,” he remarks.

As for why he shoots the women exclusively in hotel rooms, Nelson says that he stays in hotels a lot due to the traveling he does with his day job. He used to shoot women—clothed—on the street, but said that 25 percent of the time he’d get patted down by a cop. “I kind of avoided the whole thing by moving the operation into hotel rooms.” Hotel management has been less meddlesome than the police and Nelson has never had any problems at any of the places he’s stayed.

Given the permissiveness in business hotels, the meetup is simple. “Logistically, it’s just not a big deal. The women come to the hotel. You meet them down in the lobby, so that they have a chance to screen you, and then you go up and do the shoot.”

Nelson no longer lets models come with guys, explaining that every time he’s allowed a guy to sit in, he's been disappointed with the results. “Either I can’t work, or she can’t work. When you have a third party in there, it’s a question of who’s paying attention to what.”

Female chaperones, however, are a different story. Nelson not only tolerates them, but often incorporates them into the shoot. “I usually get the girls who come with them to take off their clothes, too,” he professes.

Not all of the chaperones jump into the shot, though. During one session in January 2001, there wasn’t just another woman in the room, there was an entire support group. Joining Nelson and his subject were the model’s mother and grandmother, as well as Nelson’s photo stylist and her daughter—four people all looking on. The ensuing shots show a solitary woman, looking slightly disinterested, lying on a bed.

Once up in the room, Nelson’s shoots quickly stray from any kind of seduction scenario. There’s no cajoling or flattery—it’s all business. “I’ve had guys ask me, ‘How do you get them out of their clothes?’” Nelson says. “I just tell the women, ‘Take off your clothes.’”

He doesn’t begin the session with strip shows, or sequence shots. “Basically, I want them naked right away, so that we get the elastic marks off and they’re comfortable.” With such a business-like approach to the shoot, Nelson and his models sometimes have a difficult time relaxing. He concedes that he does take a few minutes to break the ice and joke around with his subjects, even acting gay if it helps the model loosen up.

Nelson’s co-workers know about the site and all wish they were him. Nelson, however, plays down the gratification of his hobby and considers his co-workers’ envy “misguided jealousy.”

“There are presumptions people make about me, because of the pictures. One is that I’m getting laid all the time, and that’s just not true.”

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