His innovations include the use of photographic filters and special body makeup (a mixture of milk, olive oil, and glycerin) to disguise skin blemishes.

Hammerstein (1838-1904) had been mentored by Carl Hermann von Gloeden, and his forestry career led to him becoming politician of the German Conservative Party and editor-in-chief of the Kreuzzeitung.

Gloeden wrote: "I studied painting at the Academy of fine arts in Weimar under the master Karl Gehrts, but then I fell ill with tuberculosis and had to leave the studio to move to Görbersdorf, where I spent a year.

Gregory Woods, scholar of LGBT studies, credited von Gloeden with transformative powers: "Largely as a consequence of his photographs' popularity, the town became a tourist resort with good hotels.

"[12] Edward Chaney, an expert on the evolution of the Grand Tour and of Anglo-Italian cultural relations, described the town as attracting "male refugees from more repressive climates".

[14][15] In 1895, when his family's fortune was lost through the "Hammerstein affair", Gloeden received as a gift from his friend and patron the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, a large-format plate camera.

The names of some of them are known: Pasquale Stracuzzi (known as "Pasqualino"); Vincenzo Lupicino (known as "Virgilio" & seen in the "Boy with Flying Fish" photographs); Peppino Caifasso or Carafasso (who posed as "Ahmed"); Pietro Caspano or Capanu; Nicola Scilio, also spelt Sciglio; Giuseppe De Cristoforo; and Maria Intelisano (niece of the parish priest of nearby Castelmola).

[17] While today Gloeden is mainly known for his nudes, and is considered "one of the founders of modern homosexual iconography",[18] in his lifetime he was also famous for his landscape photography that helped popularize tourism to Italy.

In total, he took over 3000 images (and possibly up to 7000), which after his death were left to one of his models, Pancrazio Buciunì (also spelled Bucini; his dates sometimes given as c. 1864 – c. 1951 but probably should be 1879–1963), known as Il Moro (or U Moru)[19] for his North African looks.

The ones that garnered the most widespread attention in Europe and overseas were usually relatively chaste studies of peasants, shepherds, fisherman, etc., featured in clothing like togas or Sicilian traditional costume, and which generally downplayed their homoerotic implications.

His models were usually posed either at his house, among the local ancient ruins, or on Monte Ziretto, located two kilometres to the north of Taormina and famous in antiquity for its quarries of red marble.

He wrote in 1898: "The Greek forms appealed to me, as did the bronze-hued descendants of the ancient Hellenes, and I attempted to resurrect the old, classic life in pictures...The models usually remained merry and cheerful, lightly clad and at ease in the open air, striding forward to the accompaniment of flutes and animated chatter.