About Hywel

Particle physicist turned fetish photographer, producer and director. I run http://www.restrainedelegance.com and http://www.elegancestudios.com together with my wife, who is variously known as Ariel Anderssen or Amelia Jane Rutherford, depending on whether she's getting tied up or spanked at the time.

Cabin In The Woods

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Hywel — 7 Comments ↓

Hello everybody! I am just back from an amazing week-long location shoot with Chloe Toy, Faye Taylor and Scarlett Foxett. We hired a cabin in the woods location to film some horror-inspired photosets. My idea for the shoot was that the photos should be like publicity photos from forgotten horror films that never were – the sort of lurid shots that were used on movie posters, box covers and magazine articles back in the day that would suggest the story of the horror film and make it look as sexy as possible.

Of course this wasn’t all we shot- we shot some regular RE sets as well. But the horror-inspired theme was the main
aim of the trip.

I’m absolutely thrilled by how well they came out. The best working pattern turned out to be lighting and photographic style decided by me and Faye in collaboration, Faye taking the photos with me as creative director, then me stepping onto set as the monster/shape/stalker/possessed person to menace the girls. That worked best when Faye figured out that we needed to use me like a prop for the models – so Scarlet and Chloe would tell the story, acting and posing themselves, then Faye would position me to enhance what they were doing and make sure I was in the right part of her shot. It was a really enjoyable collaboration, especially with models of that calibre so all we had to do was enhance the storytelling that they were doing and
make sure we tailored the lighting, props, costumes and the like to suit.

I have a dilemma now as to what to do with these sets. As with the Kitsune Battle set that’s just gone up, some of them have fake blood, prosthetics (thanks to Scarlett Foxett for all her hard work on those!) and they generally have a darker tone than regular RE sets. They are mostly of the 1970’s Hammer Horror film vibe rather than anything too realistic – not least because it’s HARD to do practical effects without dedicated crew. But it’s certainly a departure.

We decided the thing to do was to shoot an RE set within each storyline – so there’s a point in each story where one or both of the girls get tied up, but before anything bad happens to them. We shot at least 100 shots of the pure bondage part like that, so that if everyone hates the horror film aspects we still have a saleable RE set from each storyline. Similarly we have shot a few sets with the horror theme that might sit well on SilkSoles.com too.

I’ve decided as with some of the other RE side projects like Elegance Studios or the D&D film that I should spin off discussion and promotion into a little mini-site: BrideOfDarkness.com. All the sets we shot will be available in full from the usual RE/SilkSoles/ElegeanceStudios eStore in a new category, I will just be linking to them from BrideOfDarkness.com so they’re all accessible in one place for Horror fans to find.

But BrideOfDarkness.com is NOT going to be a membership site, just a store window for the eStore individual photosets. If you want to see these sets as part of a membership, they are going have to go up on RE/SS. I will be putting up the “cut down” versions of the sets for sure, maybe with some setup shots for storytelling as well.

What I don’t know is whether I should put the sets up on RE or SilkSoles in JUST their cut-down form, the 100-ish bondage/foot fetish shots (maybe with a few of the set-up storytelling shots as well). Or should I put up the whole set, horror aspects and all? We promise that the cut-down sets look very much in keeping with regular RE sets, albeit on the more stalker/darker end, but nothing that you’d not expect to see in a regular set.

So the question really is – if you’re NOT a fan of the horror elements, is it going to freak you out to have the whole set including those later shots in the storyline on RE? Or should we just put the cut-down RE friendly sets on the RE members’ area and leave the full set to BrideOfDarkness only? You can always download and throw away the parts of the set you don’t like – and that way is less work for me on several levels. (I won’t have to maintain partial sets on the eStore or keep explaining it). But I don’t want to freak out existing members!

What are your thoughts? You can comment on the blog post here to let me know:
http://elegancestudios.com/wordpress/?p=29377

Hywel

Restrained Elegance is 22 years old!

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Hywel — 2 Comments ↓

Hi everyone,

1st April marks Restrained Elegance’s 22nd birthday! I didn’t choose to launch the site on April Fool’s day – it had been intended to launch a few days later on or around 4th April. But the billing had already gone live, and such was the fierce interest in fetish sites in the early days of mass internet access, I got my first member before I even knew the site was open for business.

So here we are, stuck with April Fool’s Day. Let’s celebrate!

For RE members, I’ve opened up the site so the updates and archives go back a whole year. If you missed out before, take the chance to catch up this weekend. I can’t keep this much material on the site for long, the bandwidth bills would be crippling, so don’t miss out!

And if you are not a member today is the day to join – you’ll get 112,493 photos and 277 video clips (total duration 67 hours, 38 minutes) but the offer lasts for THIS WEEKEND ONLY! Now’s your chance to get double the bondage for your money!

If you prefer to purchase clips and sets individually I am also running a 50% off SALE on our eStore, THIS WEEKEND ONLY.

That includes all our Elegance Studios films like Scarlett’s First and Second Sessions, Slave Auction, all our D&D Feature Films, the Pony Girl trilogy plus all our updates from the last five-plus years!

I won’t be running another sale like this this year, so don’t miss out!

April 2023 Preview

Posted on March 25, 2023 by Hywel — 1 Comment ↓

Hello! Restrained Elegance is 22 years old (or will be on 1st April 2023)! Here’s a look at some of the
awesome bondage photosets and videos we have coming up for you this month to help us celebrate!

Look out for a bumper archive update on our birthday, including some of these sets. More for members through the month as usual….

March already!

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Hywel — Leave a reply

Hello friends,

It’s March already, how did that happen? I’m very much looking forward to this week for three reasons. First, because I have a two day shoot with two stunning models for some creative custom videos. Second, because that shoot is the last in my mega-hectic run of shoots catching up on content since the pandemic. And third because that means I get to switch gears a bit and head into the editing suite to work on a lot of the 3 years’ and more worth of content I’ve shot in the last twelve months… not least to finally deliver a few outstanding customs which haven’t been edited yet.

In retrospect I took on too many customs in the last six months given that I was also shooting three times as much as I do in a normal year (to replace the “stock” of stuff on disc that I put otu during lockdowns when it was forbidden to shoot with external models). It’s been fine keeping up with the editing for the 20 minute straightforward ones, but some of the outstanding ones are cinematic films with lots of camera angles, multiple scenes, multiple models, visual effects work needed, which will benefit from careful sound design and grading scene-by-scene or shot-by-shot. So apologies once again to the three customers who are still waiting on their grandest and most cinematic commissions from me – I should have the time in the next couple of months to spend the multiple days your films deserve!

The same applies to my own more cinematic projects – Lucy’s D&D film shot just before lockdown still has all its complicated and thrilling outdoor sequences to come, there are full-day or full-weekend location films with multiple models that will take a week to edit, more in the Horror-film inspired pipeline of work, five hundred unedited photosets, a hundred a twenty unedited video projects – some of which are two hour long “proper” films or multi-part storylines.

Normal production for the rest of this year is going to feel relaxed after twelve months of crunch. I have four one-week location shoots booked which form the spine of the year’s filming, and I’m just starting to book in the shorter shoots now. My aim is to work with many new-to-RE models, get more of established RE favourites and do a bit more trade shooting (where I film for the model’s productions as well as shooting them for RE). I love shooting for RE and Silk Soles, but it is super-interesting to have a few days where I shoot different fetishes and work in different styles – stops me getting stale. Very often the model will say “well I’d like it to look like an alien operating theatre” and I’ll think – I have some props and stuff I can pull out of the kit room to make that happen. I love creative collaboration!

If there are any UK based models you’d like to see on RE drop me a line to suggest them. (I’ll work with non-UK models too if they are travelling here but it’s easier to schedule with British models).

I’ve got pet projects of my own. More Horror-film inspired stuff (I’m toying with giving this it’s own little mini-site at BrideOfDarkness.com . Working more with the anamorphic lenses. More in the “visit to the pro dom as a treat” series that I’ve shot with Lucy Lauren and Faerie Willow so far – got a few models in interested in that, you’ll see the first scenes on RE next month. I want to shoot some more gothic or baroque sets with overblown storylines. I want to shoot more polaroid sets – got an idea for a “found footage” storyline where we see what’s happening through the eyes of the heroine’s polaroid camera, Blair Witch but for bondage.

If there are themes, styles, storylines and stuff you’d like to see me do more of this year, let me know! And if you want any customs, I’ll be opening custom requests once I’ve got shoot dates booked in with models. There will not be anything like as many slots this year though as I want to avoid the editing logjam this time around.

Silk Soles has a bunch of shoot ideas bubbling around too – I very much enjoyed last year’s trade shoot with Faye Taylor, I’ve got a bunch of ideas to shoot with Ariel, I’ll be grabbing more stuff on location throughout the year, and I’ve even shot some foot fetish horror sets with Scarlet Foxett to treat you to as soon as I get into the editing flow. I’d be up for shooting more Silk Soles videos this year but they’d need to be customs, for some reason the Silk Soles videos never sell as well for me on Clips4Sale as the RE bondage ones do, so I’d need a bit of help to make sure the production costs are covered. Please drop me a line to webmaster@restrainedelegance.com if you are interested!