The book offers a playful take on traditional fashion photography and iconic images with unexpected details, often nudity. For instance, Bailey-Gates’‘Marilyn Monroe moment’ goes a step further with a lower-half flash. These are interspersed with statuesque portraits of the human form, at once channelling sculptures of ancient deities and toying with gender boundaries. The photographer’s peers – friends, artists, collaborators – appear throughout the book too, often partly undressed but fully made up. Bryce Anderson Behind Glass But as I get to know him, I realise that the tales of his brutality aren't true. He is something else. He is fae. Part of the powerful and magical people who are said to have abandoned this world entirely three hundred years ago. But here one stands before me. And when he turns his onyx eyes upon me, I fall captive. In the world of Michael Bailey-Gates’ photographs, subjects get to play pretend,” Cyrus Dunham writes in the book’s introduction. “Imitation is as profound a practice as embodiment. The split between ‘being’ and ‘looking like’ breaks down. In Michael’s work, the subjects are what they look like, and this elision demands ambitious dreaming – and questioning – from the viewer.” Thomas and I Jerome and Bobby Dancing in My Studio Jane and Me Self Portrait For an entirely different reason. As his army marched towards a battle with the king I once adored, I must decide. Midas or Rip. Loyalty or freedom. In this game of war and love, it's my turn to choose.