Edmund Chris Nelson (1960 – December 7, 2006) was an American photographer and co-founder of Bear Magazine in the 1980s, was the photographic pioneer in the gay-oriented erotic photography of mature men with hairy bodies and facial hair. His work directly led to the legitimizing of the bear community as a social group. Nelson's photography was the sole subject of a 1991 book The Bear Cult: Photographs by Chris Nelson (Gay Men's Press, London, ISBN 0-85449-161-9), introduced by Edward Lucie-Smith. At 46, he died of a heart attack in the San Francisco Bay Area in December 7, 2006.