Art or money: do we sell out?

There has been a lot going on “behind the scenes” (so to speak) in Fluffytek recently. Strange things afoot, new directions etc.

1. Richard has talked a lot about his photographic intentions for the future, which naturally change and evolve as life goes on. However I won’t say much about them, because it s a private matter for him, and its up to him to choose if he mentions it on the blog or not. But many discussions, ideas and brainstorming are going on, of the good creative kind. Fun!

2. We are getting an increasing number of private clients. This is good.
We are in a dilemma though. Should we gear Fluffytek towards varied and expanding art that we enjoy shooting, or should we embrace the commercial side of things?

There is a definite market around here for private porfolios of b+w nudes for private clients, much in the style of the photograph below. They have found the web site (even though we have not publicised it) and they want to look beautiful too.

Rich likes shooting this style of photography, but he is afraid that the more he shoots commercially for private portfolios, the more it might become less about the art, and more about an income. Money is good of course, but we always saw Fluffytek as a passion for art, and thus have the freedom to shoot what we want, rather than set it up as a business and shoot to a formula.

The worry is that shooting to a particular style might perhaps kill the passion. Rich wants to expand the styles and eroticism of his work - we have tentatively shown some of the more adventurous erotic and/or fetishy images (which you guys 'n' gals would find completely acceptable because your boundaries are wider) to private clients, who were universally mortified. They love the fluffy nudes. The "dodgy stuff" doesn't sit well with the general public.

Advice from you lovely folks out there would be appreciated, as I know many of you do both commercial work and shoot for private artistic purposes.
ON-BLOG comments only please. I think your advice would benefit others.

3. My last post, the long-short story, drew several “off-blog” comments, a few of which went along the lines of “Are you sure you want to air your dirty laundry in public?” and “Is this the best place for this type of writing?”

My initial reaction was of course, “This is my blog, I can write what the hell I like!” But then I thought about it, and thought about it a whole lot more, and thought, maybe they are right.

When we started the blog, Rich wanted us to keep it all related to photography. I have definitely let this goal drift recently. My writing has expanded.
I love writing, as you know. General articles about life, the universe and everything, plus fiction, non-fiction, a mixture of both - as was the long-short story – unfortunately with blogs, people automatically assume the stories are completely factual and autobiographical. Well, so it was to some extent, but also I was trying my hand at a bit of creative writing…hence the title “story”. Judging by the responses, this is not the place for that.

The irony is that Rich has reversed his original position completely. He says I should write whatever I want, and who cares about what other people think?
On the other hand, I have come to realise that his original opinion was probably right, especially if we are possibly choosing a more commercial route. Posts about photography and art would be more in keeping with the business of Fluffytek, and I should post less private stuff, less creative stuff, less of my ramblings. To that end, I am contemplating moving my non-photographic related writing (which I MUST do or I’ll simply explode) to another blog, unrelated to this site, under a different name.

Again all thoughts on this from friends, Romans and countrymen (and countrywomen) gratefully received.




The beautiful Holli B, taken last year when she was pregnant.

A long-short story

***CAUTION***EXCRUCIATINGLY LONG POST APPROACHING***



Once-upon-a-time in a little seaside resort in southern England, there lived a young prince, who fell in love with a beautiful red-headed princess. The princess was young and naïve, and completely blinded by desire and love for her tall hunky knight in shining armour. She had been dating the evil Count Sluggo for many years, who treated her pretty badly, and the young prince swept her off her feet, and disposed swiftly of Count Sluggo with one swipe of his big shiny sword. He then proceeded to woo the young princess, simply by being nice to her. Of course the wooing process was helped considerably by his ability to give her mind-blowing orgasms which she never thought she was capable of having. The princess was new to the concept of sex that she actually enjoyed, and after trying it, she discovered that she rather liked the idea.

A couple of years passed, and the prince remained devoted to the princess, so much so that he married her in a romantic but inexpensive wedding, at which the budget was nothing because they were students. The ceremony was at the ugliest registry office in the country, the reception was in university digs, and the wedding bouquet was a bunch of weedy looking flowers from a motorway service station. The honeymoon was one night in a seedy guest-house in the seaside resort, and the champagne in the guest-house was free, but no matter, because they were finally hitched, bound together forever, husband and wife, “to the mutual exclusion of all others”, or so the wedding vows went. This was IT. This was LURVE with a capital “L”.

Then the prince and princess went back to university digs to carry on their studies. They expected the honeymoon to last forever. They expected nothing to change. This was complete nonsense of course, but it took a few months for reality to bite. They discovered some curious things about being married, the most important being that even though they didn’t feel any different inside, nevertheless people treated them differently. Suddenly their friends became more distant towards them, and treated them like a single entity, where the wife was the property of the husband. The princess, an ardent feminist, got pretty rapidly pissed off at being treated like an appendage to her husband. She burnt her handbag and her bra, refused to be known as “Mrs” and then rebelled by partying long and hard to prove she was as young, carefree and single as ever. This really pissed off the prince, who was bewildered and upset because his new wife had suddenly turned into an unknown party animal rather than his beloved companion.




The second thing they both discovered about being married was that marriage makes the husband pretty damn irresistible to the opposite sex, even though the wife is simultaneously perceived as the property of the husband. The sudden sex appeal of the prince went to his head rather. He honestly didn’t realise that he was actually devastatingly handsome, and maidens flinging themselves at him on a constant basis was kinda cool. Bearing in mind his wife had suddenly turned into Germaine Greer, it was perhaps understandable that he found it difficult to resist the charms of their female friends.

He had also inadvertently not realised until that point that he was polyamorous by nature, which meant that whilst he didn’t want to sleep around, he certainly saw nothing morally wrong with loving more than one maiden at once. And of course, he had fallen in love with an old friend, who loved him back. He wanted to stay with the princess, but his bond with the friend was very strong – they had been close for many years.

When he gently explained this to the princess, being a morally upright and naïve sort of girl, she freaked out totally. They had been married less than one year. But she didn’t quit the marriage, even though it was under considerable strain by that time. “Thou shalt not quit thy husband”, that was her motto. She took her marriage vows very seriously. “For life”, meant just that. She loved the prince to distraction. After all, he might not be perfect, but he had rescued her from the evil Count Sluggo. Life without her hero was unthinkable. She loved him despite his faults (although of course, polyamory is not a fault at all, but she didn’t understand that at the time). But on the other hand, she couldn’t bear the idea of sharing him with another maiden either.

The prince and princess talked it out honestly, and talked, and talked, and got precisely nowhere. This continued for several years, long after university had finished. The prince and princess loved each other, they wanted to make the other person happy, to set them free, but how to do so, without pain, jealousy and unbearable heartache? The princess thought that polyamory meant that the prince didn’t love her enough, that she was wrong for him, because if you love someone, surely that means you can’t love anyone else either, right? So she rebelled by partying even harder. Her work took her away from home a lot, and she had brief flings with a few other guys, partly to get back at the prince, and partly because she felt so desolate and abandoned inside. They were both eaten up with guilt, her for breaking her marriage vows, and him for being unable to stop loving the other maiden.

Their relationship at this time was passionate, but destructive. They had staggered on for about seven years of marriage by now, in a semi-open relationship. It wasn’t working, they both knew it, and the whole thing was brought to a head by the death of the princess’s mother (to which she was devoted). Then a horrific incident befell the princess, one night when she was working away from home, and she was sexually assaulted by one of the drunken knights with whom she was working. No she hadn’t been drinking, and there wasn’t anything she could have done, but her self esteem was so low by that time, that she thought the whole thing really was her fault. After all, Count Sluggo used to treat her like that. Plus she had broken her marriage vows previously. She deserved to be punished like this, surely? Consumed with shame, catholic guilt and self-loathing, she didn’t tell the prince (who would have dispensed with the offending black knight with a swift swipe of his shiny sword), but instead she bottled it up inside. She did, however, move jobs. It was the easiest option.

But the experience had changed her at a fundamental level. Eventually she had the courage to sit down and tell the handsome prince (who was still devoted to her) that she couldn’t go on like this. She wanted something different. She wanted a normal life, a normal relationship, babies.

The prince knew how destructive their relationship had become. He also loved his wife, and by this time, the old friend had long gone and married a Scottish dwarf, and had been replaced by several other adoring ladies-in-waiting and even a bisexual male courtier who professed to be in love with both of them. Life was very confusing. It was time to change.

So the prince scooped up the princess, hired a Mr Thrifty truck for all their belongings, and moved them and their four cats to a completely new part of the country, over two hundred miles away. They then proceeded to have babies, more cats, and to live pretty much happily ever after.

And do you know something? After the prince and princess had produced little princlets, and mini-princesses, the prince no longer felt the inner compulsion to be involved with other maidens. Because his life was full of new family to love and adore, and he had so many new little people who worshipped him as the best thing since sliced bread, he admitted to the princess that he simply had no more room (or energy) left for loving other ladies-in-waiting. The irony was that by then, the princess understood him and his polyamorous nature perfectly, and whereas she still wasn’t keen on the idea of sharing the prince, she no longer thought that there was anything wrong with him, or that she was inadequate or the wrong princess for him. She had accepted him for who he truly was.

It had taken twenty years, but they were finally “married”, in the real sense of the word.



(When they reach twenty-five years, the princess intends to take the prince to Vegas to get married again. This time properly.)

Yanks vs. Brits

Most of my online friends and contacts are in the US. As the our old misguided prime minister Tony Blair once put it, “Britain has a special relationship with America”. All too true. The Brits admire the Yanks for their openness, their freedom, their vision, their audacity, and above all, their ability to “think bigger”. They are annoyed with them because of their brashness, willingness to complain, disregard for manners, over-aggressiveness, the obsession with suing everyone, plus their government’s desire to blow away everyone who disagrees with them. One thing the English just don’t get about Americans is the whole “gun thing”. The right to bear arms. I’ll never understand it. Guns kill people. Get rid of guns and less people will die. It’s not rocket science.

However, the guns issue aside, most Brits greatly admire the Yanks. I’ve never visited America, and courtesy of their stringent fingerprinting requirements for all visitors, I’m probably never likely to. But that doesn’t stop me thinking of the US as a groovy place. I love America! All my favourite t.v. programmes are from the U.S. (even though many of them don’t understand true sarcasm), plus my t.v. heroes are Americans. If David Hewlett (a.k.a. Dr Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis) ever asked me to America, I’d be on the next plane over, and to hell with fingerprinting and my marriage vows. Principles can only stretch so far after all! (What can I say, I love geeky scientists with a dry wit and sparkling eyes – definitely “my type”).

The little culture differences between the Americans and British never cease to fascinate me. The Yanks are more open about things, and the British are way too hung up on manners and secrecy. For example, the British find talking about money excruciatingly difficult. You can’t ask an Englishman how much he earns, how much his car costs him or how much he paid for his house. It’s definitely “not the done thing”. We have money phobia, and it makes no sense at all. If you can’t ask people how much they earn, how can you possibly know if you’re being paid your market value?

Americans are more emotionally open than the Brits. You will often find an American nude photographer ranting about his personal artistic opinions to the whole wide bloggie world, but you won’t find that here in the UK. Nude blogs are rare here, plus the English often don’t talk about their emotions, or their feelings about photography. Depression is taboo. We have a very stiff upper lip. Therapy is largely seen as for wimps –if you have an emotional issue, go talk to your best friend. Not terribly psychologically helpful, is it? There’s a reason we Brits aren't emotionally well adjusted. We know this, and yet I’d rather die than get therapy (if I needed it, which I definitely DON’T, O.K?!). Emotions are usually suppressed, which isn’t healthy, but it really isn’t cool here to discuss one’s feelings, and certainly not in public.

And then there’s the accent. In my mind, when I read all the bloggie links on the right every day, ya’ll have a frightfully upper class British Accent, because I do, and that’s how my mind interprets reading your blogs. It actually comes as quite a profound shock if I talk to a U.S. photographer or day-job customer on the phone. He sounds so very….um… “American”. The unexpected twang of the accent. We Brits expect the world to talk like us, behave as we do, and to display English restraint at all times. We are a condescending, unforgiving bunch. Gratuitous displays of emotion from Americans are fairly scary to be honest. If I ever did meet the highly luscious David Hewlett, not only would I be struck dumb by his accent (I know he speaks like that on t.v. but not in real life, surely?), but he is often so emotional that I’d run as mile within moments of talking to him. Reality is much more strange than the virtual world.

I’ve concentrated here on the cultural personality differences, but there are many others, usually silly language differences. Diapers vs nappies, fries vs chips, trunk vs boot, rubber (US condom) vs rubber (UK eraser for pencil drawings), fag (homosexual in American English) vs fag (cigarette in UK), Santa vs Father Christmas etc etc. According to my female American friends, when you make tea you use a saucepan or whistling hob kettle to boil the water…electric kettles are pretty rare in some parts of America, and you stir your coffee with stirring sticks??? How peculiar! We use teaspoons over here. In the U.K., the use of the word “gotten” is grammatically offensive on so many different levels.

I could go on, but I suspect I’m getting boring.

Is there a difference in American and English nude art? Well, the Brits have many less famous nude photographers than in the US (you’ll notice all of our links on the right are to American sites). I think this is partially because the US has millions more citizens (and thus more photographers), plus also the privacy laws are more permissive in the US (over here the nude photography sites are extremely closely monitored, including this blog….hellooo Mr Policeman! Lovely to find you reading this!), and then there’s the fact that we have way more surveillance cameras here, and thus less ability to shoot outdoors without the very high probability of being caught on camera and/or arrested.

You guys have bigger spaces and more freedom. We have no human rights. We are very envious. In a perfect Anglo-American utopia, we’d like to move your best US human rights laws to England. But without the guns, or Guantánamo Bay, or your employment laws, which suck deeply. Thank you, Santa, that would be ideal.

So if I love America so much, why don’t I move there? Well, of course I couldn’t fund the US health insurance, I’d never get a long term job or visa (due to health issues), plus of course, I am fundamentally an upper-middle class British snob. My very English opinions don’t stop me thinking you guys 'n' gals are great, or that I’d greatly like to live in Ohio rather than this charming English swamp, but it does mean that it’s extremely unlikely I’d ever comfortably fit in there, in “real life” (rather than my virtual one).

But then again, I don’t fit in here either, so what have I got to lose?!



For the record, Rich says that if I’m moving to America, then I can definitely go without him. He thinks this post is a “sycophantic pro-American suckup”. Hmm. With tact like that, now you see the reason I generally try to keep him away from the day-job customers…

Rainy Day Blues

Harry Potter was great. SERIOUSLY GOOD ENDING! I read it within 24 hours, and it was nice to immerse myself in witchy stuff for a bit. Being a reasonably able witch, it’s nice to mix with one’s own kind a little. Weird needs weird, every so often, just to keep sane.

So what else is happening? Well, for one thing, England is drowning.
Literally.
For those that don’t watch the news, the UK has had the worst rain for a generation. Nearly everywhere is flooded and the UK infrastructure has ground to a halt.

We’re O.K. here in our little Eastern pocket of the country. This area is already a giant swamp, and heavily irrigated with dams and dykes, which means that areas are much less prone to flooding. But the fact that the rest of the country is drowning is affecting everything, including our day-job. Kinda difficult to pimp your software when there’s no-one left to sell it to. But mustn’t grumble. At least my house is intact, even if it IS full of rowdy kids who are shut in on their summer hols, cooped up and bored senseless. So who came up with the bright idea of inviting other people’s bored kids around, in the hopes it might cheer them up ? (Sometimes I’m not the brightest Smartie in the packet). Guess the house won’t be intact for very long.

No models either. It’s very difficult for models to get here at the best of times, let alone in this weather, so no photography (I’m still broken, so unable to model), which makes the man very blue. We have a shoot planned next week and I’m keeping everything crossed that she can get here somehow, and that this won’t get cancelled as well.

In addition, the media’s coverage of the floods is really annoying me. Instead of relying on professional photographers to get decent footage of the floods, every single newspaper and t.v. station is inviting readers to “send in your photos” from digital cameras, mobile phones and so forth. Of course, once you upload them to the t.v. station, you lose all your copyright to the pictures, but who cares? The t.v. station certainly doesn’t . It has free piccies and it can do what it likes with them. No need to pay for decent photographs when you can get grotty ones for free from the public eh? How do the media expect professional photographers to eat? This is the death of photo-journalism in the UK, and it really sucks.

Eventually this obsession with “free” will drive everyone out of business. Why pay for something when you can have it for free? Sod the quality and the fact that the photographs are really bad. Doesn’t matter, because hey! It cost nothing! Thus being excellent value for money!

Sorry for the moan chaps, but it’s difficult to stay positive when it’s raining constantly…and I mean torrential rain, ALL of the time, for months on end. No sunlight, no vitamin D, no sparkle. Just water, water everywhere. Must dig out my thermal socks (sexy, Lin, that’s real sexy!) and hunker down under a blanket until this British summer is over…

Good job I don't live on the western coast of North America eh? I'm definitely a sun worshipper :-) Better move to Florida instead!



Lilmummy, looking yummy

A break from blogging

Actually it won't be that long.
There are two reasons:

1. Tomorrow is Rich's birthday.
Hope he likes all the porn, oops, sorry, I mean nude/fetish photography books I have bought him. Plus I have also collected some of the best work from several online bloggie friends, Nad Iksodas (looking forward HUGELY to that one), Melvin Moten's latest Covet book (if it arrives in time!), plus Gary M's latest too. Never say we aren't wildly enthusiastic and devoted fans of your fabulous art :-)
In fact these are as much birthday presents for me, as for him!

2. The last Harry Potter arrives tomorrow. I have been obsessed with these books since the first one. Can't wait to see how it ends. I absolutely refuse to budge off the sofa until I've finished it. Sorry folks, but my heart belongs to Harry until this is over. After seeing nude posters of Harry, oops, I mean Dan, in Equus, I've never been the same....



To float your boat, here's Lynx, of course, in a pose which really shows off her....um...beautiful assets in all their glory.

Happier Times

We really have had a rough week. I'm definitely not at my best, so you're all going to have to excuse the extremely low quality narrative of my blog post. I'm obsessed with writing (Conceited? Moi? Definitely!), but today...nope...I am so stressed I have nothing but meaningless waffle. Sorry, and all that....normal service will be restored shortly.

What is stressing me, you may wonder, in a kind of disconnected, non-interested way? Work of course. Too much work and no pay make Jill a very dull and blue kinda girl. Plus an afternoon with monster-in-law. It's enough to make anyone head for the Kalms tablets with a high level of enthusiasm (thanks Grommit for the recommendation! Blessed Valerian Root indeed! Makes you less stressed plus completely stoned!)

Anyway, my favourie image of the day is NOT A NUDE!! Shock horror! Sorry, I know I'm supposed to like nudes and only nudes (politically correct and all that) but I loved Magic Flute Nudes' State Fair I know I should only really post links to nude art, but this image really reminded me of when I was a kid. Some of my happiest memories were at the local fairground. I love it, dammit! If I had enough money (in fact, if I had any money at all), I'd buy it, frame it and stick it on the wall, where it would remind me every day of happier times. Rich thinks I'm nuts.

Anyway, second fave image of the day is Nad Iksodas's boats photograph from his blog post today. I'd give practically anything to wake up to that view in the morning. Wow. It's beautiful...

Funny how some art speaks to you like that, isn't it? Not many people "get it" but this time, this moment, I really do.

Favourite munchie of the day: My son's Victoria Sponge Cake. Food makes me happy!

Favourite moment of the day: My husband telling me he loves me, even though I'm clothed in the chic attire of a scruffy student, look like the dog's dinner, and despite the fact that the day-job customers have been truly bloody horrid today.

Favourite quote of the day is from Warren Buffett: "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked."

Very true! Especially today!

Right I'm off to play theraputic ping-pong with my sons :-)



Claire Louisa. One of the best things I like about blogging is that I get to publish the images I really like! (Even if other folks may not like them as much as I do!)

Cross-sex friendships

My oldest son has decided that he’s had enough of girls. They’re just too upsetting, too much hassle and he doesn’t understand them.

“Welcome to the real world”, his Dad said.

“I’m finished with loving girls” said my newly-cynical son. “From now on, I’m just going to have girls as friends. I’m just going to study in future. No more women.”

“Uh-huh” I replied somewhat sceptically. “O.K. What happened?”

It turns out that on his latest trip to a disco with his class-mates, his (first love) girl kept him on a string, and then decided to dump him and dance with his mortal enemy all night. Hence, much heart-ache, tears and bitterness. And he’s only twelve.

Resisting the urge to launch into an over-protective, mother-induced rant against young and seductive twelve-year-old floosies, and how she was never good enough for him anyway, I gave him a hug and bought him a new computer game, which cheered him up immensely. However, that tactic won’t work forever. It’s gonna be a rough ride.

The thing is, as I explained to him, it just isn’t possible to be “just friends” with a girl.

There is no such thing as a purely platonic relationship between men and women.

Call me cynical, but I really believe this is true (assuming that neither of the parties concerned are gay, of course). We’re talking about close heterosexual friendships, not mere acquaintances. If we’re being completely and utterly honest here, then sooner or later, love and/or sexual attraction will get in the way.

Rich and I have had many, many cross-sex friendships over the years, and in every single case, the love and sexual attraction aspect has entered the relationship at some stage, often with disastrous results for the friendship with the other person. It might be possible to start out purely as friends, but somehow, somewhere along the way, as the friendship grows, sexual attraction plus romantic love creeps in somewhere. “The Demon Lust,” as my old catholic maths teacher used to say.

The attraction may be one-sided, and the person who feels the attraction may never let the other friend know, but the chemistry exists all the same. And the object of the attraction usually knows it too, although they wouldn’t admit it, for fear of embarrassment or for fear of being wrong, or just because they don’t feel the same way, and they may simply want the friendship to just go back to “normal”.

Work friendships are especially prone to this. Law, medicine, photography, accountancy, the profession doesn’t matter. If you’re stuck on a three week management review job, far away from home, spending 24 hours a day with an old work colleague who has become a close friend, then the chances are you’re going to end up in the sack together, or if not, you almost do. No matter if you’re married, dating someone else, whatever. It doesn’t matter. Sexual attraction is human nature. It’s hard-wired into your genes.

Suppose you’ve been happily married for many years, and one day you leave the wife at home to go on a two day-long location shoot with a beautiful nude model, with whom you’ve worked many times before, and who is also a close friend. After a long day’s fun shooting, plus several glasses of wine on an evening at the bar, the conversation starts flowing, and you talk late into the night and tell each other your deep-dark secrets. Are you then telling me that the idea of sex wouldn’t creep in somewhere? Because if you are telling me the whole thing is completely above-board and utterly innocent, you’re either lying or kidding yourself, and I simply wouldn’t believe you.

So are all friendships with the opposite sex doomed? Is it possible to have life-long close platonic friendships between a man and a woman? Yes it is, in my experience, but only after the love/attraction/sex thing is long gone, which usually takes years. IMHO, I think the trick is to get beyond the sex bit. To recognise the mutual (or one-sided) attraction, to talk about it openly and honestly, and then to agree that it exists, but to put it aside. Perhaps this even gets easier with age, as the hormones die down a bit, although I do know many sixty-year-olds who would disagree with me, and who are in the throes of some grand passion (and not with their spouses I might add).

Both sexual attraction and falling in love are human nature, and such emotions can add a great deal to the depth and wisdom of a close friendship. The trick is to acknowledge the issue, and to recognise the “stop sign”, the point at which you can go no further without ruining the friendship with sex. And of course, it’s not really even the sex which is the ultimate problem here, it’s the emotion that inevitably goes with it. You simply can’t have sex with a close friend, and feel nothing for them emotionally. It’s just not possible.

Like many people, I am notoriously bad at heeding stop signs. I tend to blindly speed past the amber warning sign, charge straight through the bright red stop sign, and subsequently flatten everyone in the street. Carnage. And the friendship is ruined.

The moral of the story? Talk to your friends, be honest with each other, and the friendship will survive if both sides are determined enough to make it work. Above all, avoid extended jobs away from home with work colleagues, long intimate shoots with beautiful naked friends, and most definitely stay away from alcohol :-)

And as for exercising that elusive concept called “Willpower”?

*Sigh* When someone learns how to master it, please do let me know how.




Cheeky Lee. One of my personal favourites from last year’s shoot.

The Spanking Job

Rich and I have had a marital….um….disagreement, shall we say.

I had the opportunity of a very well paid shoot with another photographer, who wants to photograph me spanking naked guys. I didn’t have to be naked. There was nothing sexual in it at all (other than light-hearted acting on my part), and God knows we need the money at the moment (day job not going as well as we’d like). So I was very strongly tempted. I softened Rich up with a glass of Pinot Grigio (or so I thought) and then very tentatively mentioned the job to him.

Result = Explosion of volcanic proportions.

Him: “No one’s paying my wife to shoot ugly old naked guys. That’s not art. It’s trash. You’re just thinking about the money, not about the art. I don’t care if you shoot TFP or whether you’re paid, as long as you’re shooting for the best photographers, and you’re shooting only for art!”

Oh dear. So much for the Pinot Grigio. And was 14% proof organic wine at ten quid a bottle too.

Me: “So who decides if they are the best?”

Him: “I do. C’mon, you can tell the difference between art and crap as much as the next person. You’re intelligent, you have good taste. You can tell the difference between a GWC and an art photographer.“

Me: “Now hang on a minute. There are GWC’s who shoot for art as well. A photographer can be both you know.”

The response was unprintable. Apparently you can’t be both.

O.K. Different tack…..

Me: “Well, we need the money….”

Him: “Where are your principles? It’s not about money, it’s about art!”

Me: “O.K. um….who the hell are you to say who I can shoot with, and who I can’t?”

Him: “I am your husband, and I’m putting my foot down. You’re not doing that shoot, and that’s final!”

Me: “Really? You think so, huh?……O.K. then, big-shot. How about another shoot I’ve got here, for mature models shooting up to nude?”

Him: Let me look at that photographer’s profile…….. Absolutely not! You’re going to end up in 40+ Slappers Magazine. I don’t want my wife plastered all over that sort of magazine. Plus it looks like it’s a pay per view site. No bloody way!!!”

Me: “What are you, my pimp?”

Him: “Nope. I’m your husband. There’s more to life than money.”

Me: “No there’s not. I’m an accountant. I’ve got three kids to feed, you know. A job’s a job.”

Him: “You’re better than that. It’s about art, not money.”

Me: “Balls! Art doesn’t make money. Shoots like that do.”

Him “You could make more money going out to work as an accountant!”

Me: “True. But it wouldn’t be as much fun. And if I went out to an accountancy job, I’d have to work to 10 o'clock at night. And you’d never see me”

Him (the master stroke): “If you did shoots like that, what would the kids think if they found out?”

Ooh! Low blow! I had no answer to this one….but sighed and resigned in defeat….

He really would have made an excellent lawyer…

Humph…

I do love a man with principles, though.




Alas I don’t have any spanking shots to go with this post, or suitable images for 40+ Slapper Magazine either (or at least not that I’m showing here). But in the meantime, here’s me looking tasteful, in those long-forgotten days before I went to the seedy side of modelling….

An ode to the GWC

Still swamped with work. But thought of this little ditty that I'd like to share with you.

[Edit...ditty subsequently removed due to models not understanding the meaning of the word "parody", being mortified at the idea of me being a leery photographer who wants them to get their knickers off, and subsequently cancelling the shoots. Apologies to all who were offended.....Please note for the record, I AM NOT A GUY WITH CAMERA!!!]


To go with this post is Lynx, who recently became a Playboy Cybergirl. Congrats to her!

Let the boobies fly wild 'n' free!

The UK bra industry is worth £500m UK pounds per year. The “over-shoulder-boulder-holder” is a necessary evil in many women’s lives…but who do we have to blame for this often uncomfortable, but ever-so-sexy piece of clothing?

The first modern bra was invented by a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob way back in 1913, in order to find a way to squeeze into her evening gown. Since then the bra has gone from strength to strength, literally as well as figuratively. Despite the brief bra-burning episode in 1968, the bra has endured. Millions of women in the Western world have used it ever since, to contort themselves into ever more youthful and gravity-defying shapes.

Let’s face it girls - breasts are heavy, cumbersome things. When you run to the shops, providing you’re not completely flat-chested, if you go without a bra then the little buggers bounce and swing all over the place, resulting in male admirers with eyes out on stalks and tongues hanging out. Not a pretty thought.

And all this fuss over a pair of udders. Yep, that’s right, udders. Why-oh-why are men obsessed with udders? There’s a whole industry grown out of photographing these mighty mammaries. They are worshipped, adored, obsessed about, lusted after, and generally drooled over.

This sexualisation appears to occur only in humans. When did you last see a bull eyeing up a pretty young cow in the field, and saying to his mate, “Ay Caramba Hank, that’s a mighty pert set of udders that pretty young heifer’s got, don’t-cha think ?”
And yet humans, supposedly way more civilised than our bovine friends, find this type of behaviour perfectly acceptable. The sex industry thrives on the mammary obsession, you photographers make (hopefully) a decent amount of money at it. So why the attraction?

Personally I think it all stems back to the Goddess/Mother earth mythology. The Goddess has been worshipped throughout human history for her fertility and her power. Without sounding too “Da Vinci Code” about it, throughout most religions from Mayan mythology through to modern Christianity, the Goddess has been venerated as the founder of mankind. The milk of her breasts is seen as the source of all life in the world. Every woman is derived from the Goddess, so the wisdom goes. So why corrupt the Goddess by covering up her very symbols of life-force? When was the last time you saw an Egyptian statue of a priestess in a bra?

In modern society, breasts must be kept hidden. Baring your breasts is a big taboo of course, and going without a bra (with clothes on) is equally frowned upon - I have to put a bra on when I pick the kids up from school, otherwise you should just see the looks I get!
Sagging and jiggling breasts (such as mine) are seen as unattractive in the Western world, whereas in the Kalahari Bushmen, for example, they are seen as proud representations of motherhood – nudity is nothing to be ashamed of there, nor are age or the effects of gravity. And it’s religious repression and fear of aging which are the key to this difference. In Western Society breasts must be young, firm and youthful, in order to be considered fertile and attractive by men and women. Hence the invention of the bra, which holds them up, clamps them in, and makes them appear much younger and firmer than their true age and shape.

Western society also generally forgets that breasts are primarily designed for one thing – food. I have been asked many times to be a breastfeeding counsellor. I’ve been doing it for 12 years, and I’m pretty darn good at it. But I’d be a terrible counsellor, because I’d have no patience with young new mothers, who think that feeding their baby for three weeks is acceptable, instead of the four years that human young are biologically designed for. I’d tell these women to burn their bras because even nursing bras cut off the milk supply and cause mastitis. I’d tell them that bras are unnatural, horrible things, that they have even been linked to breast cancer because of the lymph node restriction.

But these women wouldn't care what I think. They would still wear bras, because they are seen as conventional to society, because breasts are seen as sexual objects, rather than the vessels for food for the young, because this Western Society is repressed and doesn’t appreciate each individual woman for her natural naked physical beauty, no matter what the size and shape of her breasts are.

If all women burnt their bras, breastfeeding wouldn’t be seen as embarressing and something to be done out of the public eye. All sizes and shapes of breasts would be seen as normal and beautiful. Women wouldn’t hide them away under some uncomfortable torturous device of wire and itchy fabric. They would love themselves for their real bodies, rather than covering them up.

Nudity would be one step closer to being perceived as normal, rather than something repressed and hidden, and nude photographic art would be seen as beautiful mainstream work, openly celebrating the power and eroticism of the Woman, rather than primarily titillating (pun intended) "eye-candy" to be giggled at and labelled “porn”.

So I urge all women reading this to throw away your bras! Protect your health and the health of your future babies. Don’t be afraid to display your breasts for the camera. Let others admire your beauty, and trust the photographer to reflect this in his work (without drooling). He's not intersted in your breasts (well, not much anyway). He's driven by a passion to create art of the most powerful life-force in the universe. The female.

Be proud of your body and your breasts, no matter if they are young, pert and gorgeous, or if they have been chewed by three kids and are hanging round your ankles. Your boobs are talismans to your past experience – they show your life.

They show YOU, the Goddess, in all your glory.

Beautiful, naked, powerful and free.




The young Goddess, Lilmummy.

Bloggie Birthday

It's our birthday! This blog has been going a whole year today!

It’s certainly been a rollercoaster ride. Many times I thought I’d delete the blog (Rich threatened me with divorce if I did!), many times it has been immensely painful and frustrating to write. Other times it’s been immense fun! We have shared our personal journey through the first year of photography with many thousands of complete strangers, and in the process, made many friends and found out many new things about each other along the way. Plus, IMO, Rich has created some groovy art and discovered his true vocation (shooting nekkid chicks!)

We always planned to keep the blog going a year, and then decide whether or not to continue it.

From a personal point of view, even if no-one read my ramblings, I’d still have to blog, no matter what. Ideas for potential posts regularly drag me out of bed at 4 a.m. to kick my scrawny ass onto the laptop. I get no peace until the blog entry is written. Richard, on the other hand, often finds blogging stressful. I always tell him to blog more, simply because I think he’s a great writer. But he always says he’s not a writer, he’s first and foremost a photographer, and he’s happier concentrating on his Art.

So I guess the bulk of the writing will be continued by me (I am after all, the Queen of Waffle, and I do love talking about anything and everything), with sporadic posts now and again by Rich. He says he’s only going to post when he has something he wants to write about – other than that, his work says all he wants to say (Now who does that sound like, Mr Moten?!)

A year ago today, this blog started as a way of exploring what Rich and I were creating together (photographically speaking), and to reassure potential models that we weren’t a couple of pervs. Now blogging has become a way of life for me, almost an addiction. It’s made me realise that writing is my passion. Plus it’s given us both a whole new online bloggie social circle, some brilliant friends and it’s been a great show-case for Rich’s artistic endeavours.

Thank you for staying with us for a whole year.

I can’t promise that this blog will still be going in a year’s time, although that is certainly our intention, but I can promise you that we will be blogging and photographing, somewhere, somehow.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to celebrate a year’s blogging with a bottle of Chardonnay, a shiny black cat-suit, and a pair of giant rubber lips (don’t ask!)

These are the top three most popular images from the last year, in order. The Kate montage, Cheeky Lee’s “Submissiveness”, and the beautiful Roswell Ivory.

The Monster and the Flea

This week is software release week.
Our day-job software product is a direct competitor to a particular Microsoft product, but we are small fry in comparison to the mighty Gates Godzilla. So small, in fact, that we are merely a flea on the back of a rat on the back of the monster which is called Microsoft. But it’s a start.

There is a great deal riding on this software version, not least the ability to eat and pay the mortgage. It has been a tremendously stressful few years. My dearest partner has sweated 70+ hour weeks for over two-and-a-half-years to turn our company around. We have stressed, we have argued, we have come mighty close to losing everything.

Now it’s over.

Now all we can do is wait, and hope that potential customers will like our software enough to ditch the truly crappy Microsoft code and spend shiny hard CASH on this little flea.

Here is a little ditty that I wrote twelve years ago when we first started the company. It still seems apt! (although you will please note that I am definitely no poet)

An Ode to Mr Bill Gates

One day a famous man called Gates
Came knocking at my door.
“I wanna buy your company”, he said,
“I’d like a guided tour”.

I took him to my office,
He played with my groovy code.
“Richard, you’re a genius”, he said,
“This will surely cost a load.”

I took him to the kitchen.
He scoffed up all the food,
“And now let’s do a deal”, he said,
“I’m in a dealing mood.

“I must admit your product,
Has cost me an arm and leg.
How much do I have to pay today,
Or do I have to beg ?”

He offered me £50,000 UK pounds.
I turned down his offer flat.
“I see I’ve underestimated you”, he said,
“I am a silly prat !

“I’ll bring my millions tomorrow,
Just six or eight or ten”,
But then – oh bugger- I woke up,
And I was poor again.

Lilmummy, looking gorgeous in an eye-watering pose which would surely make me end-up in hospital (again).