Fun, fundraising remain his focus.

Byline: PEOPLE By Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

JUNCTION CITY - Talk about changing the subject.

Jamie Hooper first focused his camera lens on nature, selling his photographs of flowers and forests at the Oregon Country Fair. Then, for 25 years, he was best known as a local portrait and wedding photographer. Three years ago, however, the 62-year-old Hooper began carving out a more unusual niche.

"Photographing nearly naked men for charity" is what he calls it.

Since shooting the first Men of the Long Tom Grange calendar in 2004, Hooper has been hired to do five more: the Junction City group's 2005 and 2007 calendars, and three for the Men of the Willamette Valley, a group of Corvallis men raising money for the downtown Jackson Street Youth Shelter there.

Hooper tried to come up with a more succinct name for his new speciality, but nothing else quite nails it.

He briefly considered "dudedoir" - a play on the boudoir portraits that were a popular gift from women to husbands or boyfriends in the late 1980s.

"But that wasn't quite right - those were usually soft-focus, alluring portraits using negligees and things like that," Hooper said. "And I don't think you can call it `beefcake' with men this old. That's usually guys in their early to mid-20s, greased up and looking good. None of these calendars are about the nudity or titillation."

Rather, he said, his photos of nude men holding strategically placed props are satires of our culture's obsession with youth and physical perfection.

"Really, it's poking fun at our attitudes toward nudity," Hooper said.

He deliberately uses poses and settings that are polar opposites of body-conscious beefcake shots. In the Men of the Willamette Valley calendar, his groups of nearly nude subjects appear caught in the acts of everyday life - fishing, reading X-rays in a medical office, casting ballots at a voting booth.

"Mostly, you get the feeling that these guys have no idea they're naked," he said. "That's where the humor comes in. You just have to giggle. If you're not offended."

Hooper said he readily agreed to shoot the first Long Tom Grange calendar when Danuta Pfeiffer came up with the idea in early 2003.

"I thought, `I can tell her anything I want because this is never going to happen,' " he said.

It did, however - and over the next two years raised more than $650,000 for Junction City schools and local charities. Hooper charges for his services, but discounts his usual fee by one-third to one-half for the fundraising projects.

Hooper has lived in Junction City since 1977 with his wife and business partner, Mary. He was born in Boston, but spent his early childhood living along a rural stretch of Long Island Sound in Connecticut.

"I spent a lot of time in the woods," he said.

At age 10, he moved to Pacific Palisades, Calif., and later earned a fine arts degree from nearby San Fernando Valley State College. There he spent hours doing something that would prepare him for his current speciality: drawing nudes from live models.

"You become very comfortable with them when you're sitting only five feet away," he said.

He didn't study photography, concentrating instead on print-making, particularly intaglio and etching. After marrying Mary, the couple decided to indulge his childhood affinity for forest by moving to Horton. He began photographing nature, selling his photographs of flowers and forests at the Oregon Country Fair and other venues.

"Then someone said, `Look - Jamie's got a camera. Maybe he can do Bobby's senior picture.' I did, and it was absolutely ghastly - I knew nothing about portrait photography. But I improved, and did more and more."

He joined the Professional Photographers of Oregon - a group he would eventually lead as president.

"I went to their conventions and took their workshops on portrait and wedding photography," Hooper said. "I learned about lighting, posing, marketing." He honed his skills and started winning prizes.

In 1977, he and Mary opened North Light Studio in Junction City, where he often photographed local residents in their costumes for the community's annual Scandinavian Festival. The couple closed their studio in 2001, as Hooper "semi-retired" to pursue a new interest in Web site design. But he continued to do weddings and on-location portraits - including the fundraising calendars.

The "nearly-nude" shots have been much harder for the men he photographs than for him, Hooper said.

" I grew up a hippie, so had no problems," he said. "To me, it's just been photography. But think about it: The vast majority of people, particularly men, don't like to have their picture taken under any circumstances. Now here they are with their clothes off when I'm saying, `Now, give me a nice, warm smile.' "

Another challenge has been the occasional prop malfunction.

"I was shooting Larry Engles, a banjo player," Hooper recalled. "When I got home and looked at the shots, it turned out he was holding his banjo a little too high. That's a time when we say, `Thank God for Photoshop!' '

JAMIE HOOPER Claim to Fame: Photographer of "nearly naked men" for six fundraising calendars. Family: Wife and business partner, Mary. Two children: Jennifer, 39, runs a U.S. Army Base youth center in Pisa, Italy; Ryan, 32, plays guitar in "Ellen Says No," a Seattle band. Favorite TV Show: "Lost." Currently reading: "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by Thomas Ricks. Favorite nude: "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli. Check out his calendars: www.grangecalendar.com, www.menofwillamettevalleycalendar.com