Jean-Daniel Cadinot, one of the gay porn industry's most legendary director-photographers, has died of a heart attack aged 64.
The Parisian pornographer attracted an international audience for his audacious films featuring youthful men.
After some time directing mainstream films for French-speaking audiences, Cadinot begin photographing male nudes in 1972.
By 1978, when he turned to filmmaking, he had published 17 photo collections, which had sold more than 170,000 copies. By 1998, he had directed 54 porn productions.
Cadinot's official website broke the news of his death last week, with a pre-prepared farewell from the director himself.
"If you're reading these words I will have put down my camera, switched off the lights, drawn the curtains and taken my final bow," his message began.
"The human being is made such that it only remembers the good and the beautiful, therefore I leave you with a free mind and a head overflowing with a myriad of young men, sometimes strong and vigorous, sometimes fragile and sensitive. All of them gave me these unforgettable moments of their most tender intimacy, moments that only a few really know but which I made into images to allow you to admire them over and over again.
"Never were success or personal fortune my creed. You offered me gratitude, and I thank you for that because I wanted nothing else. Cadinot salutes you. Remember a kindly fellow, an extreme observer given to rages and contradiction but who listened to others and was full of love."
He concluded: "An erect phallus is a symbol of life, a cross a symbol of death."