Behind the Strip: Lara Harris Playboy Test Shots by Stan Malinowski
From my archives: original 35mm Kodak Safety Film negatives of Lara Harris—test images photographed in studio by Stan Malinowski.
Lara Harris: model and actress
Lara Harris worked internationally as a fashion model before moving into film and television. Her modeling résumé included marquee designers and beauty campaigns; later, she built a solid list of screen credits through the late 1980s and 1990s. Notable appearances include No Man’s Land (1987), The Fourth War (1990), The Fisher King (1991), Too Much Sun (1991), Demolition Man (1993), and All Tied Up (1994). Harris’s career reflects range—commercial fashion, runway, beauty work, and feature films.
The nude decision: why these tests exist
These are studio test shots made for Playboy. Test sessions like this were a standard step: photographer and model explore lighting, pose, and comfort level to determine whether a full assignment makes sense. Harris was open to nude work within clear boundaries—here, a long skirt and simple poses, topless, lit with restraint. It reads as a study: measured, collaborative, and professional.
Reading the strip
- Multiple frames show small changes in angle, gaze, and shoulder line.
- The long skirt maintains modesty while focusing attention on posture and form.
- Neutral background and soft light emphasize tone over spectacle.
These frames aren’t pin-up theatrics. They function like contact-sheet notes—quiet, systematic, and purposeful—showing how Malinowski worked when refining a concept with a subject he respected.
Why it matters in my collection
Stan Malinowski’s name is central to late-20th-century fashion imagery—Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Town & Country, Playboy, and Penthouse. Original negatives from his sessions are scarce. This strip connects Harris’s acting profile with her modeling life and documents that professional moment when a performer considers nude work on her own terms.
Notes on provenance
Medium: original 35mm Kodak Safety Film negatives. Photographer: Stan Malinowski. Subject: Lara Harris. Studio test session for Playboy. The negatives are preserved as part of my ongoing archive and collections work.
If you’d like to see more rare and original photographs, negatives, slides, and ephemera, take a look at From My Collections (Cultural & Erotic) — an ongoing gallery of pieces spanning decades of visual culture.
https://www.secondfocus.com/gallery/From-My-Collections-Cultural-Erotic/G0000h1LWkCCepcc/
A Studio Nude From the Mid-1960s
This original medium-format negative, shot sometime between 1960 and 1964, captures a nude model posed in a studio. The setup is simple: a seamless backdrop, a strong key light from the left casting a sharp shadow, and the model in stiletto heels holding a pose as she is dancing. The frame number in the rebate and the imprint from a Hasselblad 120 back place it firmly in the working methods of the era.
What stands out most is the difference in aesthetic between then and now. In the early 1960s, the “ideal” nude model was shaped as much by stage and dance influences as by fashion—often lean but not overly muscular, with a natural body and a poise drawn from performance. Hair was styled, makeup applied, and the presentation carried a certain theatrical quality. Today, the visual language of nude photography spans a far wider spectrum—from unretouched realism to heavily stylized, digitally polished work—and the concept of the “ideal” is far less fixed.
This negative is part of a much larger archive I’ve been building, preserving examples of cultural and erotic photography from different decades. You can view more pieces like this in my gallery From My Collections (Cultural & Erotic) here:
https://www.secondfocus.com/gallery/From-My-Collections-Cultural-Erotic/G0000h1LWkCCepcc/
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