The English Dominatrix Book Reviews

It’s not often I get the chance to read books, so when I do, I try to ensure that they are definitely worth my precious time.

I still can’t make up my mind about my two latest books, both autobiographies, both about professional dominatrices. Both books were about finding love and fulfilment via their profession and via relationships with their clients. Both were about life as professional dominatrices and why they do what they do, and how their jobs affect their private lives.

Dominatrix: The Making of Mistress Chloe by Mistress Chloe is a great deal of fun, simply written, but makes the life of a dominatrix out to be much more glamorous than it actually is. She behaves like a film star, and shamelessly name-drops (or alludes to famous clients). She makes out that a career as a dominatrix is kind of like how Julia Roberts was as a prostitute in Pretty Woman, complete with a rich master who rescues her at the end. Mistress and master live happily-ever-after because both become equal in their relationship – they have both reconciled their mutual power over each other (presumably one plays master some of the time, and one plays mistress the rest of the time). This is essentially a corny love story involving sexual power games, hopelessly romanticised, but her career obviously makes her very happy, so who am I to argue ?

Mistress Chloe glosses over the details of what you actually “do” in a session. She talks more about the power of a dominatrix, and how her gifts to explore her clients’ fantasies and inflict controlled pain actually make her clients happy. I suspect the reality is way more gritty and disturbing.

Concertina: The Life and Loves of a Dominatrix by Susan Winemaker is more intelligently written and doesn't spare the physical details. It helps that she majored in philosophy. However the book comes across as being overwhelmingly emotionless, a condition I suspect that reflects the reality of being a mistress. I can’t see how a professional dominatrix could actually do this for a living without actually psychologically retreating from her work to some degree.

A session with a dominatrix will actually give clients emotional release, make them happy, restore their equilibrium, satisfy the darker sides to their personalities, and generally bring them comfort. But what effect does it have on the dominatrix? After all, inflicting pain and humiliation on another soul must be rather harrowing for the mistress. Yes it makes a dominatrix feel empowered over men. But this isn’t the reason she does it. A dominatrix is not after revenge on men, she may or may not be screwed up emotionally, she may or may not be into BDSM herself, and she is usually a pretty normal woman.

One thing she makes clear from her book is that being a dominatrix is excruciatingly boring. The author spends most of her time thinking about cooking, (she was originally a professional chef), and she finds it far easier to talk about her emotions through her sensual descriptions of preparing food. So her feelings about being a dominatrix are described via recipe descriptions, which is a metaphor which doesn’t work entirely successfully, and thus her feelings and psychology (the interesting part of the book) are never fully explored or analysed.

The author does describe an intense physical attraction to a particular client with whom she develops a relationship, and the passion between them is eloquently written. Unsurprisingly, the relationship is very intense and destructive, and eventually results in her near-nervous breakdown. She breaks the rules and moves from detached dominatrix into actually having a BDSM relationship, causing physical and mental pain and subjegation, as well as consuming passion. Needless to say, she eventually walks away at the end, for the sake of her sanity. Although it is only alluded to in the last few pages of the book, I suspect she quits her job to live a “normal life” with a “normal man” (rather than the self-obsessed client).

Both these books were interesting. However you'll all be relieved to hear that I’m not about to resign from accountancy and suddenly turn into a dominatrix (although the money would certainly be better).

Ultimately, neither book provided the answer to my original question :

Why become a dominatrix?

In the end, I just came away with the idea that there is no reason why. It’s just a job, like any other, which pays the rent. Neither of the authors really understand themselves, which seems to me, rather sad.



I’ve run out of images with me play-acting dominatrix, so you’re just gonna have to put up with this one instead.

The Weird Week

It has been an extremely odd week. The world seems to be out of kilter, lost its marbles, gone crackers. Whatever you’d like to call it.

Rich has been going around in circles all week with Javacript/Ajax code and getting increasingly frustrated. My two boys came home yesterday from completely different schools, physical and emotional wrecks, both with large black bruises on their heads in exactly the same place, (right side of forehead) from cricket ball injuries (cricket season reigns supreme at school, as does scary amounts of homework). Plus, our customers and resellers have been acting very strangely all week – the world in general appears to be on edge, dissatisfied, annoyed, out of sorts.

What else strange has happened ? Well, Candy has stopped her blog, for reasons I entirely understand, but this is still nevertheless very sad. The US is about to pass a very peculiar law which may have even more far-reaching photography implications than that in my Thoughtcrime post below – See Gary M’s post for further details about this.

On the home front, my mother-in-law has suddenly declared she is very happy and has taken up knitting baby clothes (only those who really know her will realise just how strange this is – about as likely as me getting F-size breast implants and taking up glamour modelling as my career), but I truly am glad she is content at last, whatever the reason. She’s also very adamant that I shouldn’t let Rich resume his nude photography next month. She firmly believes it will be for the best for all concerned if he shoots landscapes instead from now on. Please note she does not know about this blog, as yet. When I originally started it, under a different name, I did let her read it, and as a result of her comments, deleted it extremely quickly.

I don’t tell many people about the blog, apart from a few close friends. I do suspect my father-in-law reads it (Rich’s parents are divorced and remarried, in case you are wondering), although he never says anything, and it may be that the poor chap left in horror long ago.
This week, however, I did tell my delightful and very Christian close friend about the blog, but didn’t tell her the URL, not that it is difficult to find, mind you. I suspect that I should have kept my mouth shut though, as I haven’t heard from her since. This has upset me. In fact it’s probably upset her too, especially the yummy mummy posts a while back, in which I was rather…er…cutting. I am still bruised from the yummy mummy exclusion zone, but nevertheless, I suspect that the ladies in question are largely unaware of the emotional hurt they cause to myself and other mothers who just don’t make the grade. Not that this excuses them or me. I guess we’ll just agree to differ.

Why did I tell my friend about the blog, especially bearing in mind that it’s almost certainly not her cup of tea? Because I don’t like secrets, and I never have (this blog and Rich's mum being the one exception). Usually I believe you should be who you are, all of you, no holds barred. And if people like the real you, warts and all, instead of the persona you portray to your work colleagues, or social circle, well only then can you make the leap to life-long friendship. Real friends are rarer and more valuable than precious jewels. As Chinese wisdom says, one can do without people, but one always has need of a friend.

So all, in all, it’s been a very odd week.

One last point is that it appears that Madonna and I have something in common at long last. We have both been acting 20 years younger than we actually are, believing that we are as young as we feel, no matter what our bodies are telling us. Remember all that energetic modelling about six to eight months ago, during which I stretched my body in ways I could never have imagined, and pulled all sorts of demanding poses? Well, let me tell you that art-nude modelling is for the young, the supple and/or the very fit. It’s certainly not for 40 year old ladies who have had multiple operations, who have an acre of land to look after, a huge house to clean and who have been lifting heavy toddlers around. All that exercise, combined with many, many hours of stretching, posing, wobbling on eight inch fetish heels, and generally being a complete and total idiot, has given me a hernia. My operation is in three weeks time.

Maybe I’ll have to learn to take it easy from now on. Although knowing how much I hate being sensible, I wouldn’t bet on it.

Right! Must go look up F-size breast implants on Google!




I think this image sums the week up nicely.
Sirensong and myself. I do like those zentai suits. Definitely "me".

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

We are inching ever closer to our day-job software release. It seems like it has been going on forever. Regular readers will know that Rich has put his beloved art-nude photography on hold until the software is finally released, despite my frequent attempts to persuade him otherwise. We do have a shoot booked in June with a lovely model with whom I’ve been corresponding for ages, and I’ve threatened Rich with a very nasty punishment (such as cabbage dinners for a month) if he cancels this shoot too.

I know I moan about him sometimes, but no-one can fault Rich’s dedication to duty. The reason he can’t shoot at the moment is because he is doing 70-80 hour weeks finishing this blasted software, and I barely see him nowadays. All of his creative juices are being poured into source code, leaving zero inspiration for creating art-nudes.

No matter how good he will get over the next thirty years at art-nude photography, (and that's pretty damn good, I'm sure), he will always be far more superior at software design.

Sorry Rich, but it’s true.
Software design is your gift.
Everything else is just wrapping paper, no matter how pretty the pattern.

Creating excellent software is an art-form. It requires more brain power than photography and (in my view) more creative genius. Lateral thinking outside the box, finding new, faster and more ingenious ways to design a new method of solving a software problem, requires the programmer to be completely immersed in the code. He lives and breathes it with a passion, in the same way that an artist is consumed by his art. The end result is software which is so well crafted that it is pure beauty, in a similar way that the image of a beautiful nude woman flows and has a resonance which captures the essence of both photographer and model.

I know it seems extremely weird that I do find a software product beautiful and sexy, but don’t forget that I know the blood, sweat and tears that went into producing the end result. In the same way that, as an accountant, I find a balance sheet beautiful (yes it’s true), and in the same way that a mathematician finds algebra a thing of eloquent perfection, a well crafted software product is an art-form. Sure it’s not as conventionally sexy as an image of a nude woman, and it probably won’t appeal to the readers of this blog, but it meets the definition of “art” in every sense of the word.

So the end result is that Rich has produced extremely cool software. And we hope others will think so too. Computer software may not be as visually beautiful as the lovely Claire Louisa below, but software sure earns more ingots than art-nude photography, and will hopefully give us enough gold to eat, pay for the kids, plus (most importantly) fund the all important acquisition of a Hasselblad.

He’s definitely earned it.




The beautiful Claire Louisa. Not as sexy as Rich’s new calendaring software, but she’s extremely well crafted nonetheless.

Thoughtcrime

I am extremely upset.
Richard’s art is going to be severely compromised, and for once, it’s not my fault.

Our UK government is planning to introduce a new law this summer, tagged on in a small addition to the revised Criminal Justice Act. The police will have unprecedented powers to enter your home and seize your computers for an indefinite period of time, as well as arresting you. If they find prohibited images on your computer, you could end up with a maximum punishment of three years in jail.

You can read more about the proposed new UK law here.

However, I can briefly summarise the issue as follows:

The Criminal Justice Act is currently in its consultation phase this month. It will ban possession of “extreme pornography”, which is defined as any image of what appears to be “serious violence”, which is further defined to be “acts that appear to be life-threatening, or are likely to result in serious, disabling injury”.
O.K. No moral problem there. Images of extreme violent porn, necrophilia, animals and so forth are repugnant and wrong, and those responsible should be prosecuted, and no-one who is remotely moral and decent would argue otherwise.

However, as is typical with this Government, it is trying to pass a law which will have a much wider impact than what appears to be the case at first examination.
Under these proposals, any image depicting “serious violence, created for sexual gratification” will be illegal, no matter if it is genuinely abusive, roleplay, posed by models, or carried out by consenting adults. Basically if it looks real, it’s going to be against the law. Any sort of DEPICTION, including theatrical, simulated, modelled or photo-shopped, even images which are drawn or painted.

The definition of “serious violence” is extremely loosely defined. It will be up to the local police and jury, to decide what is defined as “sexual violence”. The images merely have to be “realistic", where this means "conveying a realistic impression of fear, violence and harm".
This is completely subjective.
Potentially, mild bondage such as rope-work could be interpreted as serious violence if the police or jury decide it is defined as such - for example they might decide bondage is classified as sexual violence because it involves subjugation, or because it potentially might cause nerve damage. Similarly, a mild BDSM image, which is posed and is merely a fantasy scene, might well convey an impression of fear and harm to the ordinary average juror. Judging by the attitude of the people around here, a goodly proportion of our harmless art photography could be interpreted in this way.

What does seem certain under the proposals, is that Goth photography, BDSM images and images depicting “Kink” will be no more. Even art books containing such images will be banned, so I guess most of our fetish-photography book collection will have to go.

In addition, there is a very real suggestion that UK ISPs will be made to block access to any websites that feature material defined in the legislation. This could affect Model Mayhem, other modelling sites, many of the nude photography blogs we link to on the right here, plus any BDSM or Goth sites with icons, avatars or profile pictures, including forums. Even if ISP’s do not ban access to them, it will certainly be a crime to visit these sites, or to have visited them in the past, as the web sites you have visited are stored in your computer cache. The crime will be “possession” so even if the images were legal at the time, the police could still trace you through your ISP and seize your computers. Even if you delete the images, they will still be recoverable from your disk with specialist software, and you could potentially still be prosecuted.

The Government is refusing to distinguish between abuse, role-play and consensual acts, thus criminalising a whole section of people, such as Goths, S&M, or those into fetish, who are simply expressing their art, or who simply have a slightly different way of exploring their sexuality.

Critics of the new law say that it will be extremely difficult to actually find and police these images. However, photographers, especially nude art photographers such as Richard, will be easy targets. We have a very real possibility of our computer servers being seized for several months in the future. It doesn't matter whether or not the police find something illegal. Mere suspicion is enough to seize the servers indefinitely. Since our day-job software is located and stored on our servers, as well as Fluffytek, this presents a potentially horrendous situation. Our servers CANNOT go down at any time. If these same servers are seized, our company fails instantly because we can no longer trade. The end of our livelihood. It’s as simple as that. There is only one way to absolutely guarantee that this never happens, and that is for Richard to take down the Fluffytek web site completely, and stop shooting any nudes.

Neither he nor I want to do this. Nude photography has become a shared passion and a way of life for us. It has enriched our lives in ways that we could never have previously imagined.

So what do we do?

Currently we intend to “suck it and see”, and hope that this stupid bill gets thrown out before it ever becomes law. In the meantime, I must persuade my extremely reluctant photographer to delete the bondage shots on our web site and servers, and in future to severely restrict the styles which we were planning to shoot. I had a dream of being a fairly “way-out” fetish model, but this will no longer be possible under the new law. Richard will also have to reassess just what type of nude photography he will be able to shoot in the future. Fine art-nudes appear to be a fairly safe bet at the moment, but as for what happens next, who knows?

Please note this is NOT an over-reaction on my part. I am not being overly dramatic.

Nude-photography-wise, in the U.K., this is the end of free artistic expression as we know it.

Thoughtcrime.




Sorry about the depressing post, folks. Here's the beautiful Kate to cheer you up.

Professional ethics

As a former lawyer, and during my training as an accountant, I have had extensive lessons in professional ethics. I’m not just talking about the usual ethical dilemma of “thou shalt not cook the books”, or “if your client is laundering money, you have a professional and moral duty to report him”. I’m also referring to lessons in personal ethics. This can be summarised in one statement:

Thou shalt not have personal relations with either your clients or your co-workers.

In all the firms and organisations I have worked for, breaching this rule led to immediate dismissal, and probable expulsion from the Law Society and my professional Chartered Accountancy association.
Quite simply, breaching this ethical duty meant risking your career and all those years you had worked to become qualified.

Of course, this very important moral lesson had no effect whatsoever.
I have yet to meet a lawyer or accountant with impeccable personal morals. Those long hours at evening ethics seminars positively encouraged lawyers to let their hair down afterwards by nipping down the pub together to get sozzled, followed by avid humping in the car or hotel afterwards, and then nipping home to the wife.

And as for accountants? Well, you don’t seriously expect to spend 15 hour days locked up on an audit in the middle of nowhere, without er…going down the pub to get sozzled, followed by ……yes, yes, you have definitely heard this before. Auditing is the most boring career known to man. You have to intersperse it with sex, otherwise you just go plain crazy.

Nude photographers do not have the benefit of all that extensive professional training in ethics. And yet they generally have much higher moral standards.

When a model takes her clothes off to be photographed by a completely strange guy, at some level she is both physically and emotionally vulnerable, no matter how strong she appears on the surface. When a nude model takes direction from the photographer, she is effectively loaning him her power for a while. So the photographer has to have impeccable ethics.

A model should have implicit trust in the photographer’s behaviour. She has to feel safe. If the photographer gets a reputation for behaving inappropriately, his references will not check out, and he won’t remain a nude photographer for very long because his name will be mud.

The vast majority of photographers rarely touch their models. Physical contact is a big taboo, unless the photographer knows the model very well and has worked with her regularly (in which case the two are actually friends rather than professional strangers, and develop their own new mutual boundaries).

A photographer must always give a model her privacy, and not photograph her when she is getting changed without her permission, although many photographers still do this, unfortunately.

Photographers must never leer at a model (not that they ever do, in my experience, because they’re too obsessed with getting the lighting and pose perfect). They must always treat the model with the utmost courtesy and respect.

Above all, photographers must be very good at making coffee.

So besides the actual difficulty of concentrating on the lighting and posing, the photographer also has to maintain a delicate emotional balance. I am talking about the balance between keeping an emotional distance, whilst making the model feel soothed, relaxed, attractive and ensuring that she is enjoying the shoot.

Phew! Who’d want to be a photographer when you have this much to think about? I mean, yep, there’s the fact that you have a gorgeous naked chick in front of you, but frankly the poor photographer barely notices because he’s too busy concentrating on all of this. Richard is usually exhausted after a shoot, and I can understand why. And they say men can’t multitask!

Nude photographers often get a reputation as loners, but this simply isn’t true. In fact, they are really very adept at social skills. How else can they get a nervous, stark-naked woman to open up emotionally for the camera? Only when the model is relaxed and happy can the photographer stand a chance of shooting beautiful and moving art.

Professional ethics?

Yep, trust your photographer. He has the highest possible moral standards.

Which is more than can be said of your accountant.




Roswell Ivory, whom I can thoroughly recommend as a fantastic model, if you ever happen to be in this corner of the world.

The Photographer’s Top Two Rules of Conduct

The Nude Photography world is, without doubt, the politest and most politically correct sphere in which I have ever circulated. When I first joined MM, it took a while to get the hang of the professional etiquette thing. There are so many unspoken rules to which you must adhere, otherwise you get ostracised pretty rapidly.

The Number One rule is: BE POLITE.

Manners are critical in the photographic world. Always treat other photographers and models with the utmost respect. Not only does this help others see you as a professional, but it also encourages models to shoot with you, helps you network, and generally makes for a much warmer and fuzzier photographic experience all round.

The Number Two rule is: DON’T JUDGE PEOPLE

It’s O.K. to judge their work, as long as you adhere to Rule 1, but never ever comment on people’s personalities, personal attributes, bodies or intellect. It’s just “not the done thing, what.”

You won’t last long in the modelling and photography world unless you do stick to these Top Two Rules of Conduct, and you certainly won’t find much work, or get treated in a professional manner.

I’m always the closet rebel, but even I can see that there are advantages to existing within this framework, the number one being you get to meet more people, plus you get to be invited to more places, both in the physical and virtual world.

In short, you obey the two rules, and you’re half decent at photography and/or modelling, you get to go places within “The Firm”.
You get to have more fun.
Although if you are a model, it sure helps if you have a young ‘n’ hot nekkid body, flirt outrageously, and have at least half a brain. I have none of these, and have to survive on wits alone (which explains a lot, unfortunately).
If you are a photographer, it sure helps if you are talented, but you also have to be intelligent and obey the Top Two Rules of Conduct, otherwise you’re dead in the water.

Rich would probably agree with this. He’s even more of a rebel than I am. If people disagree with him, that’s O.K., fun even (he likes a good argument), but ultimately if people are impolite, or make personal references beyond relating to photographic images, then they won’t last very long with him, and they get erased from his sphere of existence pretty damn rapidly.

I certainly made a few major etiquette bloomers during my first few months in the photography world, and I got flamed in the process. It was a rough introduction. Now I tread much more warily, although I still drop clangers occasionally.

Part of the problem with the online internet photographic world is the major culture differences between other countries and us folks here in the UK.
Our blog is read mainly by American readers, and most of them have a completely different set of values, way of thinking and etiquette. It’s actually quite difficult to navigate these intercontinental choppy waters, and we have to be pretty careful about what we say.

For example, I will write a blog entry, and then check and amend it at least eight or nine times, in order to check it meets rules 1 and 2, and above all, to ensure it is politically correct and doesn’t offend readers in other countries.

The whole process can be quite exhausting. But it is absolutely necessary.
If you were a reader in the UK, you could read my original unedited first draft for my post, and not get offended. You might even like me more because of my wacky and dry sense of humour. But if you were a US reader, you’d be outraged, leave the blog and never come back, I guarantee it.

Photography breaks across all boundaries and cultures, and an image speaks a thousand words. However, in the writing world you can far more easily screw up and offend, because you say the wrong thing.

Words are far more dangerous than images.



Jenvy and Diablo, larking around last year.

Star Wars, Good v. Evil and Negative Space

Even before I first watched Star Wars I have been fascinated between the balance of light v. dark, yin and yang, good v. evil, black v. white.
One of the central tenants of Macrobiotics (which I dabbled in briefly many years ago) was “One Infinity manifests itself into complementary and antagonistic tendencies, yin and yang, in its endless change”
In other words, “What has a front, has a back. The bigger the front, the bigger the back”.
And as an accountant, I know that the central principle to accountancy is that, in order to balance the books, every debit must have a credit.
Balance must exist.

No I haven’t lost my marbles. What I am trying to say is that Life, Karma, “The Force”, call it what you will, is all about balance in the universe. Religions are founded on this concept; wars have been fought over it. Balance between the Dark Side and the Light is central to human philosophy and our very existence, and permeates all parts of our lives.

Beauty is mostly seen as a power for good (no matter what the reality is). A photograph or painting of a truly beautiful woman is seen as a representation of all that is good and morally right in the world. It is no coincidence that Princess Leia (Light) was stunningly beautiful in Star Wars, and also beautifully lit, I might add. Poor Darth Vadar was ugly and evil, and also cunningly lit in the shadows, to represent the Dark Side of the Force.
Obviously I’ve been hanging out with photographers too long, because I’m starting to see everything in terms of lighting, especially movies.

The light v. dark is a central principle which must be understood and practised by all photographers, if they want to be good at their craft anyway. Now I don’t know much about photography per se, but even I know this. The photographer who says, “Lighting is not important” is an idiot. And you can quote me on that.

The concept of balance and lighting are critical in a photograph. Perfect balance must exist. The dark must balance with the light; the shadow must balance with the illuminated part of the model. There is a perfection, a symmetry about a black and white photograph of a beautiful nude woman. When the photographer truly understands the lighting, the photograph lifts the soul of those who look at it.

Balancing lighting and composition can be learned when you study photography, and practice, practice, practice until it becomes second nature, until the photographer himself absorbs the ability to balance into his inner psyche. Eventually he does it automatically when he composes a photograph.
IMO, photographers who have this inner sense of balance, an innate sense of yin and yang, and who use this understanding to bend the laws of light and darkness, truly become great at their craft.

Richard put this in simple terms for the benefit of an idiot (i.e. me). If I can interpret what he said correctly:
“A photograph needs to be balanced between positive and negative space. Put simply, negative space is the space that is not the model.
A photograph needs to be weighted so that balance is reflected.
The composition has to be right, and there has to be a balance between the negative (space) and the positive.”

I really like the idea that the intrepid photographer is, in fact, Luke Skywalker on a quest to bring Princess Leia (or other beautiful models) into the Light, whilst recognising the force of the Dark Side, and tricking it into submission, in order to restore balance in the universe.

Star Wars and nude photography.

Cool.



This is Kate from Richard's first real shoot, many moons ago. I think it might have been featured before on the blog, but it does remind me of Princess Leia.

Off-topic : Booby Prizes and Nutrition

I am expressly forbidden by my long-suffering husband to post here on the subject of diet, nutrition and life extension. This is despite the fact that research on this topic forms the main focus of my spare time. Sorry all you folks who thought I spent my spare time taking my clothes off and writing sarcastic blog posts - nope, I read medical papers and nutritional anthropology articles in the bath for fun :-).

I have devoted much of my spare time over the last eight years to research on diet, food, nutrition and other non-riveting stuff like that. From time to time, folks pick my brains for knowledge, and sometimes I do easy diet profiles for them, usually tailored to their specific problem. For example last week I helped someone who had just had an operation for colon cancer, and she wanted to change the way she ate in the future, and thus popped round to ask for advice.

This is not a plug for another nutritional blog, because there are many others who do these far better than I ever could, and are far more entertaining as well. However I have been persuaded by friends to write this latest diet profile down. So, FYI, if anyone is interested in depressing themselves by reading how they should be eating (!), I have posted a smidgen of information on http://boobyprizes.blogspot.com/

Thus named partially because of my favourite all-time song Valentine's Day by ABC, and partially because I had the ultimate booby prize (the big 'C' eight years ago). Plus of course, I have an obsession with my aging and sagging boobs (all contributions to a new boob job gratefully received!)

Not sure if I'll develop that mini- blog further - probably not, but it's a useful reference site in which to store my nutritional musings, or anything nutritional that I find or need to remember.

And that's the last thing I'm going to say on nutrition on this blog.
Honestly, Rich.



The lovely Roswell Ivory.

The New Erotic Photography By Taschen

I am going to start this very long post with an apology.
I am very sorry for my horribly biased view, and I’m truly sorry for all the photographers who are offended by this post.
I am now going to commit a cardinal sin.
I am going to slate the super-cool Taschen book “The New Erotic Photography”.

What qualifications do I have for making this judgement ? I am not a photographer after all. I am merely a lowly model, plus an old and not-very-good-one at that.
But as Dian Hanson said in her introduction to the book, “I’ve seen a lot of pictures of naked women”, many thousands in fact, so that makes me as qualified as the next person to judge.

I bought “The New Erotic Photography” as a surprise for Rich’s and my wedding anniversary. We spent the morning of our wedding anniversary not having wild orgasmic sex (it has been 19 years of marriage and we have three kids), but arguing wildly about the contents of this book.

Because all of our nude-photographic bloggie friends were raving about this book, we both had very high expectations. Absolutely everyone we have talked to or read about has described the book with pride and passion.

And I would formally like to congratulate all the photographers I “know” (mainly via blogs or forums as they are all in the States) who are in this book. James Graham, BT Charles, Chip Willis, being the most well-known. Congrats you guys. Glad to see you published. But you deserved better, honestly. Like, for example, your own Taschen books.

Taschen usually produce some really good photography books (we have several), so what went wrong ?

Taschen is a German company which caters primarily for the American market. Thus “The New Erotic Photography” appears to primarily feature US based nude photographers, with a smattering of European photographers thrown in for the sake of political correctness. Yes there are a few others from other countries, but they are in the minority.

The writing is excellent. I was impressed. The section about each photographer is fascinating and eloquently written: what inspires the photographer, what drives him (or her) to take these images, why he considers his photography erotic, what essentially makes him tick. Really REALLY good stuff.

But the photographs themselves ? Ah. Don’t get me started. The introduction was followed by the predictible picture of a nude Kate Moss. Oh dear. Downhill from here then.
I am being flippant, but this is a polite way of saying that even a non-photographer like me can see that many of the photographs in the book were badly lit, badly framed, badly posed, badly executed. Just plain BAD.

The point of view of a photographer? Rich’s view was “Uninspiring and ordinary. Not all of it, but much of it”.

The book tries to be cool and trendy by featuring a US based opinion of what is erotic. Now I appreciate everyone’s view of what is erotic is different, and I realise that this book wouldn’t feature fine-art-nude photographs on the whole, because these are figure studies - leaving aside for a moment the argument that many folks find fine-art nudes erotic, although they did feature the obligatory Peter Hegre (*sighs with despair*)

But the book is a disjointed collection of “bedroom glamour”. Women rolling around in bed, feeling themselves up, sometimes with guys, sometimes with other objects. I note that there were, of course, the obligatory erotic fish photographs.(page 134-137, featuring a shark, lobster and fish by Jean van Cleemput). Nicely done, but I am obviously missing the whole “Fish thing” (see two posts ago). Will someone please explain to me what makes a picture of a naked woman with a fish sexually attractive?

And where were the pictures of men ? Yes there were pictures of men and women “interacting”, but what about men by themselves? Men are erotic too you know. What about the female readers?

Too much featuring of middle-of-the-road socially acceptable-view of what is erotic. No pushing of the boundaries of the definition of eroticism. This book was designed to sell very soft arty, coffee-table almost-porn to your average male GWC who is aspiring to be a photographer, whilst being a titilating bedroom-read for the wife without upsetting her too much. It encourages the newbie to go shoot some nudes and call himself a photographer.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing. Books should inspire.

There is a lot of raw talent in the book, but this book is defined by its notable absences. There are a lot of really famous photographers in the book like, for example, Eric Kroll, Didier Carre, Bob Carlos Clarke, Steve Diet Goedde, Craig Morey, Markus Richter, Terry Richardson and so forth (and not their best work either, I might add), So don’t tell me this book is only about new emerging talent.

But where are the others ? Where are the other really talented erotic photographers like D. Brian Nelson, Moten, Johnny Flamethrower, Martini (and many others) ? What the hell were Taschen THINKING? You just can’t feature a book about American erotic photography, and NOT feature at least one of these guys. Are Taschen plain negligent in their research capabilities, or are they just being politically correct and pandering to the masses ?

James, BT and Chip are an oasis in a desert of ordinariness. I heaved a sigh of relief when I made it to Chip’s section at the end. It was good to end on some stunning photography. Taschen saved the best for last.

My view ?

If you want to see the best in American Nude photography, look at any of the links on the right hand side of this blog. These do show the very best “New Erotic Photography”



Picture of Lynx by Richard J. Bang, newbie photographer, shortly to be blacklisted by Taschen (sorry about that Rich!)

5 Cows

It always boggles models when they first go into the studio and the first thing they see are five cuddly cows. They think we have a weird cow fetish going on…..

The truth is much more mundane, I’m afraid.

Tucows is a software download site, which lists all the latest business and personal software. We list our own (day-job) software product on Tucows, and with each new version we have to submit it to the Tucows reviewers, who charge you an arm and a leg in order to review and rate it. Instead of giving it several stars, they rate it according to cows. So the more cows you get, the better the software.

About 7 years ago we received our first “5 cows” rating, which is the highest award you can get. So I celebrated by purchasing 5 cuddly cows for Rich, as a reward for all his hard work.
Now they live in the studio.

Most nude photographers appear to do a “series” with nudes and often very bizarre objects, for example fish, chickens, celery, or bits of furniture. Now I know photographers often get stuck for ideas, and want their photos to stand out and be memorable, but FISH???? I don’t begin to understand the reasoning behind it (promotional work for the Fish Council maybe) but it seems to be thought of as trendy and cool.
So maybe Rich should do a series with 5 cuddly cows…. Whaddaya think?!



I kind of bullied Rich into taking this, so apologies for the quality of this image (not the photographer's fault!)
Unfortunately, this is not an erotic pose or a decent photograph, but balancing 5 cuddly cows on you is actually harder than it looks. Methinks this will make a good test of flexibility, balance and poise for models in future!

The Shortest Shoot in History

Here's a quick practice shot from yesterday. Rich finally took a weekend off, so I dragged him forcibly into the studio, so he could play with his lights and I could get a much-needed modelling-fix.

Unfortunately it was the shortest shoot in history (about ten minutes), as we were besieged by crap.
And I mean that literally.
VERY BAD nappy (diaper), followed by the dog misbehaving in similarly spectacular (and revolting) manner.

Romantic husband and wife shoot ?

Pah!

I snort with derision in your general direction.....

Have you seen my Mighty Marrow?

Now we really do try to keep this web site as professional and smut-free as possible. Everything is designed to the highest possible standards and taste. After all, it’s all about the art, not lewdness and sex.

However there are exceptions to every rule, and I am making an exception today.

Occasionally I chuck a few vegetable seeds in my flower patch in the garden, and see what happens. Imagine our surprise a few months ago, when I found a giant marrow. This is definitely the largest vegetable I have ever grown, and I am justifiably proud of its iconic size and status.

So boys, come see my Mighty Marrow.
Is it not singularly the juiciest and pert marrow you have ever seen?
Tasted pretty good too.

Although the same cannot be said about the quality of this post.



Makeup and hair by M.B.(2 year old daughter). Photographer: her Dad.

Hot as HELL Girl/Girl shoot.

The main work of the day job is easing off and its time to start thinking about clicking the shutter again. So I was browsing the forums of a UK modelling site and came across the forum post title “Hot as HELL Girl/Girl shoot”.

As you can imagine, two models advertising a Hot as Hell shoot must be doing something pretty extreme, so I opened the post to have a read.

Now if it were possible to sue a forum post under the Trade Descriptions Act, this would be a valid case. Here we have a run down of what’s on offer to the photographer that goes to their “Hot as Hell” shoot.

“This shoot will be a hot as hell soft girl/girl shoot”. Ok soft core, that’s ok.

“We will both be working to implied topless, that’s topless but with hands/things covering the nipples”. Hmm, doesn’t sound that hot to me! Well maybe they like each other A LOT so we might get some passionate intimacy.

“Kissing will also be implied, like almost but not quite”. This is stretching it a bit, but maybe they can still get up close and personal.

“Holding/touching above the waist only, nothing seedy”.

For Gods Sake what exactly is the point?! This is about as cold and dispassionate as I can imagine a girl/girl shoot. It couldn’t get much colder if they sat ten feet apart for the whole thing. The only way this could be hot is if they set the heating of the studio to 35C and baked the photographer.

This makes me want to shoot an art-nude girl/girl hot as hell shoot just so they can see how it should be done.

Now all I need are some models and big hole so I can hide from Lin :-)

This image is not really hot as hell but at least its girl-girl, or girl-red thing or something like that.

The Nude Photographer’s Ego

The novelist Samuel Butler said that “Every man’s work is always a portrait of himself”. If this is true, then an ego must be an extremely useful creative tool for any photographer.

A photograph says something about the photographer’s style. It defines who he is. It is his signature, his personality, a reflection of his ego.
A photographer’s portfolio is a map of his experience, and of his thought processes. The lighting, posing, grain and colour of a nude photograph says more about the photographer’s psyche than it ever does about the model’s.

The growth of the internet and digital cameras have resulted in an explosion of wannabe photographers, very few of whom ever make the transition from GWC (Guy with camera) into true artist. The element of quintessential talent eludes them. They may have bloated or deluded egos, and think their own work is absolutely fantastic, but very few can call themselves “photographer” in the true sense of the word – very few have that that unique style, that elusive “spark” which defines a highly successful and recognised photographer. (Saying that, I do however appreciate that to become a truly great photographer takes considerable time. This qualification is entirely necessary, or Rich will sulk!)

There are many photographers who do have this “certain something”, but I will pick one to illustrate my point. Iris was commenting recently that she could spot one of Chip Willis’s photographs out of a hundred others. I could too. Chip has a unique style, a flavour, a mood to his images, which reflects the way he thinks about women and shows the true essence of his personality. This is the true reflection of a photographer’s “ego” in the real sense of the word. A photograph is the heart and soul of the photographer.

Of course, when you meet a photographer face to face, he might be considerably different from how you have imagined him. There are so many emotional layers on top of the real person inside, you could never recognise the real ego at his core, just the false ego which he presents to the world. You can only see the real person by studying his art.

Photographers are largely contradictory and complicated by nature. Many photographers are obsessive, consumed, arrogant, self-indulgent, self-opinionated, and derisive of others’ work in private, yet polite and full of praise for their contemporaries when face-to-face. Hypocrites to the end. Yet this is why we find them so irresistible. Because underneath they are the most insecure and genuine bunch of people you could ever hope to meet. Photographers constantly fluctuate between ego and insecurity. A combination of arrogance and humility, which is incredibly sexy.

Yes of course we are all insecure in part - it makes us who we are. But a good photographer nurtures this chip (!) on his shoulder and reflects it in his art. He takes his bruised and battered ego, all his self-doubts, his views about the world, and uses the tool of the camera to portray this in a single image.
This is how real art is created, rather than just a photo.
This is what separates a real photographer from a GWC. The models may come and go, but the signature and core essence of the photography remains the same.

The powerful need to create art, to feed the ego, is an all consuming passion, a driving hunger that must be fed. The photographer becomes lost within his art, a slave to the ego. In being true to his inner ego, he finally finds himself.

And what happens beyond ego ? When a photographer realises the influence that his psyche makes on his work, and then consciously puts his ego aside, and looks into the void beyond? The photographic chasm where there are no emotions, no limits?

Well, as Indiana Jones once said: “Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.”




Lynx again, in one of my favourite ever shots.