>>> I have quite the glove collection now, though it sometimes shrinks a bit.
I've had more than one model refuse to give my gloves back after a shoot. I protest a bit, but not too much; it's always great finding people who share the same predisposition, and a surprising amount of ladies that I worked with, in fetish or vanilla, love the gloves!
Yes, I admit, I love gloves - it drives my fiancée crazy when she sees my work. "You gotta stop with the gloves," she says.
Maybe she's right. Nah...she's always right, but in this instance, I'll carry on!
What do you find are the most popular kinds of fetish photos?
Well, this ties into the question above - I've found many of my photos reposted on blogs, "stolen", favourited, etc, and I've noticed a theme here - the work of mine that gets the most attention, gets the most hits, are my glove pics.
Google image search routinely finds my work on glove fetishist sites.
Secondly, my smoking pics. I've never smoked in my life, never even taken a puff out of curiosity, but I'm no militant anti-smoker. I use cigarettes a lot in my photography.
A cigarette is an odd thing - a woman smoking can be the ugliest, most off-putting sight a man can see, and it can be the most incredibly alluring thing the eyes can behold.
Most models smoke (that stereotype is true), and if a cigarette makes her feel more relaxed, more comfortable, and if it gives her something to do with her (gloved) hands... why not?
Google images has found tons of my work on smoking fetish sites. Until a few years ago, I did not even know smoking fetish sites existed until I got a report of a stolen image on one!
These two themes get a lot more hits and views than the more bondage-related ones. I guess maybe because it's more accessible to the average person - it is a lot easier to be a fetishist with a glove than with a handcuff.
I guess despite 50 Shades, people are still skittish about the restraint side of things. The subtle stuff is what I get the most demand for.
What parts of the human body do you like to photograph most?
Faces and hands. I discovered that I'm a portrait photographer. In all the thousands of photos I've taken, maybe three are "headless", and about 10 percent are full-length bodies.
The rest are all faces with an element of the hand involved.
I love nudes, but I don't do an "unjustified" nude. It took me about four years of working with models before I did my first nude.
Everyone has bad days at the office - and if you have a bad shoot with a clothed girl, you write it off and you go on - you muck up a >>> nude, and you are suddenly a useless untalented pervert >>> just wanna get girls out of their panties so you can get your rocks off.
When busy with a fetish shoot, what are the most common fears that the models and you as photographer have?
I really cannot speak for the models, but when working with a new model, there is always the fear that we won't "click". This is as true for fetish as it is for 'nilla shoots.
It happens - we don't always get on with everyone we meet. I've worked with a few models that well, we just don't see eye to eye. Again - as true for 'nilla as it is for fetish. This is nobody's fault, it just happens, and sometimes, yeah, things just do not turn out as planned.
luckily, a few times things have clocked incredibly, and I'm the proud owner of four muses. there are four models I shoot with regularly that always push my buttons in the right way, inspire me to do more, better. I thank these ladies, if not for them, I'd be miserable sod a lot more often than I am now.
Your work is mostly studio based. Why is that?
My psychologist will have a field day with this answer: I like the control!
Well, that is part of the answer. As a photographer first, and a fetish photographer second, I love the control the studio gives me over the light. If this was a photography mag and not a kinky one, I'll rant about how important light is, and how photography is all about the light, yadda yadda yadda, but I won't. So I'll just say in a studio, I can take control of the light. I'm not dependent on weather, sunshine, location or whatever, I can use the light the way I want to. I've done too many location shots where the light just isn't right, or the weather doesn't play along, and that spoils the fun. Dealing with the light you've not wanted is part of the difference between a good photographer and a great one, and thanks to some unplanned weather I've gotten some great unplanned shots, but those are the exception, not the rule. I like to know that when I go to the studio, I am in control of the light, and if the shoots don't come out as I planned, I cannot blame anyone but myself.
The second part is I like the intimacy of the studio. I have a golden rule in my studio - if you are not involved with the shoot, you are not in the studio. Mothers, boyfriends, hired muscle... sorry, there is a few very nice restaurants around my studio where you can wait while I do my shoot, but you are not in the studio watching. The privacy the studio gives a better environment to connect with the models/clients, and that gives a better result. Shooting on location does not always bring one that. This shows in the photo. And the energy is brilliant. Three people: a model, a make-up artist, and me. Just the three of us, and we make magic. I always say I don't take photos so I can have photos, the very act of making them is what's important to me. Having pretty pictures to look at afterwards is a bonus.
Props. Tell us about your treasure chest full of props!
Treasure chest, huh? Who have you been speaking to? I assume you are talking about my kinky treasures, not my photographic one...
Well, firstly as alluded to earlier, there is my glove box. I do not know how many pairs of gloves I have, but it's a lot. This box goes with me to every shoot - in fact, it never leaves the boot of my car! I can hardly go through a winter without adding something to my collection. Antique shops sometimes offer up some amazing glovely treasures too.
Then I have two toyboxes, one rope-bag, and one "hard bondage" bag. The rope bag contains heck knows how many meters of different ropes. I have everything from 5mm cotton braid sash-cord to half-inch twisted sisal for that more authentic look. And everything in-between. Then my hard box contain things like my collars, leashes, chains, locks, and of course, handcuffs.
Handcuffs... Yeah. one could probably call me obsessed. I won't argue. Let's see now, two pairs of chained police-issue cuffs, one set hinged police issue, one set sex-shop cheapies (don't ever buy those, folks!), one set separated handcuffs, two sets of ankle shackles, two sets of leather cuffs and my pride and joy, an antique set of Hiatt Darby cuffs, which has been dated to Victorian era England - pre 1820 - and they still work fine! I guess they don't make 'em like they used to. Those cuffs have also gotten me on the cover of a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Yes, really. It was just a stock photo I took, but still...
Is there a shoot that you're burning to do but it's too wild and kinky for even us fetish folk to understand? If so, do share!
Wow... uh... I can't think of something that is too wild and kinky, but there are two shoots I want to do that I just did not get the right model and/or time and/or elements together to do.
I've been fortunate enough that I've managed to capture most, if not all, of the things I wanted to do photographically. One shoot I completed recently is maybe a bit bizarre even for kinky folk. I've always had enormous problems with my teeth and jaws, I spent more time in orthodontists' chairs than I did eating warm meals. I spent a total of 11 years in braces, and I still have some orthodontic hardware I have to wear to keep my teeth from falling out. It was quite a painful experience, both physically and emotionally, and the only way I survived all this hardware and pain was to fetishise it. I always said I want to change the stereotype from the guy or girl who wears braces from being the geek and butt end of every joke, to making braces and headgear sexy again. I found the right model, and I think we nailed it. I managed to fetishise orthodontic headgear! A few people told me that I'm just strange and bizarre - they are right of course - but when the photos went out, the response was amazing and a few people said they never thought that braces could be made to look sexy.
However, a few things still elude me.
I always wanted to do a shoot in the Namib desert. I have this images in my mind of a naked woman tied up in the most beautiful shibari walking across the top of a sand dune. I think the sense of isolation and desolation that can give could be awesome. I'll do this one as soon as my application to win the lottery is processed.
And then, I have in my mind a 12-hour shoot. Take one model, naked, fully made up, and put her in handcuffs and chain her to the wall with nothing but a pack of cigarettes and a camera on multiple exposure taking a pic every 10 minutes for 12 hours. I think the progression of that series, of change in demeanour over a 12-hour long bondage could be photographically, and psychologically, fascinating. The "before and after" portrait of that shoot should tell a great story. I had a model volunteer for that shoot, but she buggered off to Zurich to go study before we could find a good place to do it in. (funny both these wish-list shoots are out of studio, huh?)
Lastly, is there anything else you want to share with us? Upcoming plans, exhibitions maybe?
uh... I wish! if anyone wants to curate an exhibit of me... Nah, I just do what I does, no big plans. Maybe I should have. Why, do you have any suggestions?
alt.SA 15