Edgar Henry Garland - "The Elusive Garland" in and out of uniform

Edgar Henry Garland (1895, Wellington, New Zealand - 4 May 1973), New Zealand soldier in World War I. He trained at the New Zealand Flying School at Kohimarama, Auckland in 1916. He later made twenty-four flights over the German lines before being shot down. He made a forced landing in Ostend on 22 August 1917 and was interned at the infamous Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp, a camp reserved for British and British Empire officers. From Holzminden, he participated in the largest POW escape of the war - the first "Great Escape" - in July of 1918; twenty-nine officers escaped, but only ten made it out of Germany and, eventually, to Britain. Flight-Lieutenant Garland was recaptured but went on to make a total of eight escape attempts; it appears he was regarded by the German War Office as one of the most cunning - and slippery - of the British officers. And at the end of the war his exploits were much written about, earning him the nickname "The Elusive Garland".

All photographs by S. P. Andrew Ltd. of Wellington, 1916. All of these photographs were taken before he left for duty in Europe.

So the question is: what was the reason for the two nude poses? All the images were taken by the same photographer, right around the same time. But for what purpose is he naked...?

Lieutenant Garland is at right; the other men are unidentified.