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Looks good, but the sets with Ariel in them show too much clothing, etc…..
Looks very good, although I admit to a bit of disappointment that I already have two of the Ariel photos…
Very nice pics of Ariel. Thanks for posting them.
Great stuff…thanks for posting it!
Hywell, since you asked, I tend to view pics I download from RE as background images on my 29″ computer monitor, or a 40″ Sony TV I have in my office. I have a select file of about 16,000 images of Ariel (including some from sources other than RE) which I flash randomly with a 30-second delay as background for a smaller panel of the internet or a game of hearts, freecell, etc. Occasionally, I will use the same file as random images on my 55″ Sony in the living room.
So 16 x 9 is about right for me.
Sheep, thanks very much for the pics of Ariel. Any more you have would be appreciated as well.
Looks like a particularly good month!
Ah, that all makes sense now, Hywel. Thank you.
For what it is worth, my preference is to have the option of two resolutions of the same set of pictures, so I can decide which to download. Particularly if the model is Ariel, I always download the higher resolution pictures if I have a choice. But in the case of other models I would be more choosy. These days storage is so inexpensive it barely makes a difference however, since I have added another 5 TB just this past week and have a central server of over 20 TB now (for all sorts of material) which I fully expect to grow even larger. {I was somewhat surprised to discover that I have over 1 TB of Ariel alone, in her several personas, videos and pictures all in). I imagine many others, including hobbyists like myself, are similarly situated.
I am also an audiophile and have over 5000 LPs (which I play exclusively on vacuum tube, a.k.a. valve, equipment for the sweet and holographic sound still not realizable via digital playback). However that collection requires a wall of shelves in my main listening room which is 15 feet long and 6 feet high. By way of comparison, my central server and associated equipment is less than half the size of a case of wine!
OK, thanks, that explains the history. But what was the reason one or two pictures were so large in the first place? I mean 4 megs vs 200kb.
Well, sablesword, my view was and is that any and all shoots benefit from some full nudity, by which I mean at some point the shoot the model is completely nude. Ideally, in my view, she should start out clothed and end up nude. So not all pics should be nude.
And more importantly to me, I feel that in the case of a few models — Ariel Anderssen comes quickly to mind in this regard — shoots that don’t include full nudity are about as criminal & immoral as one can get with a camera short of outright murder.
I particularly agree with you about the need for full nudity. Lately I have been seeing far too many picture sets with no nudity at all.
Hywel, thanks for the detailed explanation. I have been trying to find proof to my own satisfaction that I had got the Hammerlock set earlier, but to date have not been able to do so. More on that later.
What I know happened is that 1) as soon as I saw the pics I thought I had already seen them, and, 2), the name “Hammerlock” seemed familiar as well and, 3), when I saved some of the pics into my main Ariel/ADR/etc. wallpaper file I immediately had some hits with what was already there. That file contains over 10K separate shots of her from many sources (not just RE) and together with about two dozen other files of her my main computer has over 225 gigs of videos and pictures of her.
Complicating the search is the fact that I have at least another 500 gigs of Ariel on many (>12), various off-line and backup storage devices (my own archive in a sense) that I plan this winter to clean up and integrate with a reconstructed version of my full on-line system (which consists/will consist of five separate computers, well over 10 TB of data, and many other devices from routers to TVs, all of this confusion the result no doubt of a youth misspent in the IT industry).
The real problem is that I do not necessarily file and save the names of sets except in my archives, and then only if they are so included by the originator. Rather I typically select what I like and put them into files named for my own preferences. I do however keep the originator’s name for the specific pics or video and that was how I matched some of Hammerlock set with my Ariel/AJR/JBH wallpaper file.
So I expect when I am done with the work above I will be in a position to say definitively if I downloaded a set called “Hammerlock” from RE in the past. But for the time being all I can aver is that I definitely have some of the pics in your recent posting.
I don’t think I am familiar with that set — where is it?
Glad your move went well. I am looking forward to seeing your new digs in future shoots.
And to echo ChrisUK, loudly,
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MORE ARIEL.
In fact I, for one, would greatly prefer it.
Ariel, thank you for your long, detailed, thoughtful and, unfortunately, convincing explanation of the situation you and your models find yourselves in. Your citing the intersection of nudity, kink, youthful uncertainty and limited public acceptance as governing factors is all too familiar, even in this day and age I’m afraid. Perhaps the problem is compounded by the fact that you personally and a (very) few other models on RE set a standard that is not easily matched.
What I mean by that is this. When I consider some of the RE sets that excel in naturalness and quality* and compare them to the more plentiful sets of tied up, overdressed, relatively expressionless (though attractive) models, I am struck by how the former is head-and-shoulders better than the latter.
Of course I realize RE cannot be expected to produce the highest quality with every effort. The world just doesn’t work that way, even as, in its own way, RE sets a standard of quality few others in the world of kink achieve.
Actually, you personally remind me frequently of Audrey Hepburn. Not in looks, although you are both beautiful women, but in range, acting ability, naturalness and possible cultural impact. You are too young to have experienced it, though perhaps you know that her appearance in Breakfast At Tiffany’s caused a major change in America in what could be accepted and discussed in the movies, and in the broader culture, concerning prostitutes in particular and sex in general. Lots of explanations why that was the case, but the way she came across as natural, convincing and honest – the girl next door quality – plus her beauty, had a lot to do with it.
Personally, I think quality sites like Restrained Elegance can and are making a difference in how kink is thought of, how it is accepted, and how people will value it over time in what might be (somewhat generously) referred to as polite society. It is a shame even if understandable that so many of your models are conflicted about participating fully in it. But if you personally in your various roles can get wide enough recognition there is hope that kink can be understood as just another wrinkle in the complexities of human sexual nature.
Again, thanks for taking the time to explain your situation.
*For example, the Lexicon series, the lawn race video, Throw Away The Key, the Long Term Bondage series, the recent and excellent Use Me Sir, among many others.
Yes, I recall that one of Laura Moore’s shoots on RE involved full nudity, and gave at least a hint of pussy. But nothing direct, presumably because of the type of rope work done. Could have been otherwise, I guess, given your comments.
For the life of me, I have trouble understanding why this remains a problem on RE. I mean the very lovely Ariel Anderssen is for me a close to perfect example of how, how much and when to display pussy in this type of photography — natural, sexy, unforced, and for want of a better word, healthy. And she is married to Hywel, and I believe now is something like the co-owner of the site. Yet very few other models have come even close to her tastefully and elegantly done display of pussy– over the years, and especially of late .
Tis a mystery.
Well, in that case, Sablesword, your preferences are well taken care of on RE, since a decreasing number of models show any pussy at all. Again, my strong preference is not to show mainly pussy, but rather to not go out of the way to avoid showing it. To me, some semblance of reality is crucial (in fantasy) for credibility, and pussy is reality. Not showing pussy connotes artificiality of the same type that belabored erotic photography up through the 1980s…ugh!
Ah. I understand.
But then, might you be able to find models more willing to show all of themselves? Like the lovely Ariel, perhaps?
Doug340
