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Any “improved” voting system is going to add at least a little bit of complexity, and at least some incompatability with the old system. That’s what I meant by a change being a big hassle.
A relatively simple change might be to rewrite the caption of the three-stars rating, to something like “I have either mixed or indifferent feelings about this set.”
I’ve been trying to figure out whether it’s better to use the single cross-type focus point in the center on my D90 or to manually select one of the other focus points so that I have less recomposing to do when I focus and recompose. And if I upgrade I’ll have the fun of going from 11 focus points to (most likely) 51…
It’s going to be a problem with any voting system that the same vote from different people may have different meanings. The thing that caused you give only 4 stars to a set might be the thing I really liked, and vice versa. And “three stars” might mean “I have conflicting feelings that cancel out – there’s something about this set I really like, and another thing I really hate” rather than the official “I didn’t see anything special about this set.”
It won’t be a perfect solution, but a proposal I’ve made before for a rating system is to give each set one to three “hearts” and one to three “hates.” E.g.
Good Parts
3 Hearts: The good parts were very good
2 Hearts: The good parts were just OK
1 Heart: The good parts were mostly not thereBad Parts
3 Hates: The bad parts were really bad
2 Hates: There were some bad parts
1 Hate: The bad parts were very minor or non-existantOn the other hand, changing the rating system is likely to be a big hassle, and so not worth the improvement.
I like the general idea too, with a few thoughts:
1. How important is nudity? For me, total nudity has become bland and boring in this sort of scene (although it still has a kick when the model is bound so as to be completely helpless). Maybe it’s because Ariel is so comfortable with it. Maybe it would be better if she (or another model) were to give off more of a “ooh I’m naked (and it’s exciting!)” vibe? Or maybe there is some way of adding color & ornamentation without eliminating the “fully nude” aspect that Doug340 et. al. like.
2. How important is it that the cuffs be metal? Would it work for others if the model wore leather cuffs, connected by light chains secured by small padlocks? Or maybe the use of “cuff liners” like these with modern-style handcuffs and leg irons would provide both good visuals and some added practicality. (My understanding is that wearing leg irons on bare legs has issues wrt the potential for injury.)
3. How important is it that the model be Ariel? My druthers would be to see a variety of models doing “chores” rather than a series of “Ariel has to do all the work.”
4. WRT “everyday lightly sexual,” how about one task being “put fresh batteries in the vibrators”? Or “coil rope to put away,” or “lay out ropes (or other restraint devices) for later use.”
As I noted on the RE blog, I don’t have problems downloading, but the voting/rating system has a glitch in it.
I’m running Pale Moon, which is a Firefox variant optimized for Windows.
BobCratchit: Complements always feel good
I’m a bit hard on myself because I’m chasing after the RE level of quality, which in turn is shooting for “good enough for the cover of Vogue.” If I compared myself to “photos taken with a point-and-shoot (and no off-camera lighting), in what is obviously a room in the Fetishcon hotel” then I’d get complacent, smug, and even arrogant. 🙁
And yes, I did keep their contact information. And I should give model credits here.
– Jasmine Mendez – Also shot with her in 2011: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2836
– Jezebel Tempting
– Jordana Leigh
– Dragix
– Briella Jaden
– Nyssa Nevers
– Luna VeraAs for the glasses – I saw some opportunities, and I took them. There are times when glasses add an extra zing to bondage pics, even (or especially) when the model is scantily clad, topless, or even completely nude.
Or my own version that I did some years back:
http://www.sablesword.com/drawings/y2006/asian_andromeda.jpg
http://www.sablesword.com/drawings/y2006/asian_andromeda_detail.jpgAs for “Andromeda” as a stage name, well, why not? Those in the audience who understand the reference might get a kick out of it.
Bonus geek points if it’s a black model.
Maybe you can change your stage name to “Andromeda Anderssen”?
On a slightly more serious note, hmm. “Andromeda” might actually be a good (if slightly geeky) stage name for a bondage model.
You’re welcome.
And I meant to ask: Do you have any use for larger versions? (Or copies of the raw (.nef) files? Your post-processing-fu is stronger than mine.)I’ll second this. I’d also like to see a shift in the ratio of nude:scantily-clad in the direction of scantily-clad. I’ll add that I’d also like to see bright colors and/or contrasting tones, in order to give more visual interest. Also, it would be good to see the Theiss Titillation Theory applied.
I’ll also endorse the idea of models tethered to anchor points on either side. I’d actually prefer the anchor points to be low down – set in the floor, or in the platform on which the model is sitting or kneeling. But a quick alternative would be for a set where the model is sitting up on a bed with her arms stretched out to either side and tied to the headboard. Or a set where the model is sitting on a couch, with her wrists tethered to either side – possibly with enough slack in the ropes (or chains) that she can bring her hands ~15 inches apart, but no closer.
And be sure to restrain her ankles, too
Wrapturist: Thank you, I rather like that photo too. Occasionally things do come together.
Hywel: A boom, or a speedlight on a clamp/gorillapod/something, to put the light above and more nearly directly behind the model was something that occured to me as well. But the more I think about it, the less I like the idea. I’m not sure what the extra effort buys me.
What I had was a gridded reflector high up, somewhat behind the model, and well to camera right. I think it worked at least halfway decently if the model was in exactly the right place. But what I really wanted was just something to separate the model, rather than a hairlight in particular. Given the equipment I had, I think I would have done better to lower that light to five or six feet up and direct it more across rather than down. Maybe flag it instead of (or in addition to) using a grid. If I had a strip box, I might have used that. In retrospect, I was worrying too much about throwing light onto the wall to camera left.
Also in retrospect, I could have made good use of a light meter, to figure out what my individual lights were doing.
EDIT:
Here’s a sketch of my lighting setup[attachment=0:26xgcugt]FC2013 lighting diagram.jpg[/attachment:26xgcugt]
Post-Fetishcon report: The IR trigger worked very well, giving me no trouble at all. Cheap & cheerful wins again.
And it was good to finally see you and Ariel in person.
plus three more
[attachment=2:2g16jvik]FC2013_Portfolio1200_21.jpg[/attachment:2g16jvik]
[attachment=1:2g16jvik]FC2013_Portfolio1200_25.jpg[/attachment:2g16jvik]
[attachment=0:2g16jvik]FC2013_Portfolio1200_35.jpg[/attachment:2g16jvik]I’ll have to agree with tfandrew (and his wife): I like the costume for this set, and there are already plenty of “Ariel in the buff” sets on the site. If anything, I’d want to see clothed sets – especially if the “clothing” is scanty-flimsy like it is in this set.
Now the nude sets are more on the artistic side of “artistic vs explicit” – but that’s just fine with me. And they are more full-body shots than close-ups – but that’s just fine with me, too.
I’ll second this, both because microfoam tape makes for a superior tape gag, and as part of my “use something other than rope and metal” drumbeat. It would be good to see a set or three featuring duct tape binding topped off with a microfoam tape gag.
Ideas:
o Bank teller taped up and locked in the vault.o Female spy caught and and taped up by a rival agent – left in the office looking as if she were a common burglar captured by a mysterious vigilante. (And when found, she can’t protest that she isn’t just a burglar without confessing to being something worse.)
o Agents of Honest Omar have taped up a new piece of “merchandise” to be collected later.
o Pesky female reporter tries to follow an undercover agent, gets taped up and left behind where she can’t get into trouble.
o Slave girl taped up in the back of a delivery van, being delivered to a new owner.
Wade: Don’t worry about lauding too much. 😀
I’m a long-time member of the RE site, because I have a lot of overlap with Hywel on what we like to see in a bondage website. (An old post of mine describes that overlap here)
Of course I also have some points of disagreement, and I do occasionally worry too much about RE moving away from the sort of thing I like and/or falling into a rut. But there are good reasons why I’ve been a member pretty much continuously, starting a month after the site first opened.
As for gags, RE doesn’t use gags as much as many sites do. There are many bondage fans for whom gags are 100% essential “If the captive isn’t gagged, it isn’t really bondage.” (I don’t share this view, but I understand it because I’m the same way about bare feet: “If the captive isn’t barefoot, she isn’t really in bondage, she’s just… tied up.”)
There’s also a tendency among the gag fans toward big, mouth-stuffing, face-distorting gags. And toward drool. (Ick! 🙁 )
I’m take-it-or-leave-it when it comes to gags, leaning toward leaving gags off, most of the time. But that still leaves me happy to see gags some of the time. The question for RE is how a gag can be made to look elegant.
Good luck on the new gig. Hope you come back all charged up with new ideas and new energy.
Nice preview photos, btw
I’m not so great at rope ties myself, which is why leather cuffs are seen so much in my photos. But I do have a few things that you might try:
1. Use “flat” ropes or web strapping to produce appropriately-modified versions of the “standard” rope ties.
2. The “Chinese Five Flowers Tie.” Starting info and tutorials here: http://www.chineseropeart.com/home.html
3. Heavy rope bondage after the style of Saico. See Saico’s profile on fetlife.com for examples.
For the Katarina Nikita set, I suspect the low ratings came in large part because of the long-sleeve blouse, the long pants, and (most of all) the shoes. Put the model in “daisy duke” shorts and a halter top, and take her shoes away, and I’d bet that the ratings would have been much higher, even with everything else unchanged. Or even if the set didn’t have the bare breasts show up. For that matter, simply having Katarina lose her shoes, after the first dozen photos, might have boosted the set’s ratings.
Hywel, I know you’ve said that nude sets rate higher, but have you done any analyses on how different kinds or levels of clothing rate? In particular, analyses on how “clothed, but the arms/legs/breasts/navel is exposed” sets rate? If it turned out that any sort of clothing dragged down the average rating vs nude sets, that would be interesting to know. But it would also be interesting if it turned out that (e.g.) long sleeves were what mostly dragged down the ratings of clothed sets, with “clothed but sleeveless” sets turning out to have nearly the same average rating as nude sets.
A “futuristic” science-fictional slavegirl costume might be a length of plastic wrap, wrapped a few times around the model’s torso. It might be either clear & colorless, or tinted, and it might be set off with gold duck tape.
Yeah, the ratings do need to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
Is there a large variation in the number of people who rate the different sets? (e.g. do some sets attract lots of votes, whether good or bad, while others attract only a small number of votes?)
I remember once commenting on how outdoor location sets were something I liked in theory but tended to not rate so high in practice. I think I’m the same way about historical costumes – I like the idea, but when an actual set comes out… (But I’ll put in another plug for “skimpy slave costumes!” rather than quite so many full-nude sets.)
Sometimes it’s just That One Element that sinks a set for me. “Reverse Prayer” ties just bug me, for example, and I’ll never rate a set very highly if it includes that, no matter how great it is otherwise.
The model has very little effect on how I rate sets – maybe plus/minus a half star in the most extreme cases. There are some models I’d like to see more of, but they’re all pretty much 4-5 stars. (For the “Bondage X factor” votes, I have to get picky, basically rating the models from 4 to 8 stars on a 1-5 scale…)
As a half-baked idea, maybe the 1-5 stars rating can be replaced with a pair of 1-3 ratings, something like this:
Rate the good parts and the bad parts of this set:
Good Parts
3 Hearts: The good parts were very good
2 Hearts: The good parts were just OK
1 Heart: The good parts were mostly not thereBad Parts
3 Hates: The bad parts were really bad
2 Hates: There were some bad parts
1 Hate: The bad parts were very minor or non-existantMy initial take is that they’re not bondage-haters, but rather shoe-haters. (“No heels, dangit!”). Another factor, I suspect, is the division between those who find “hot girl-girl action!” to be, well, hot, and those who don’t.
So for some people, the sets are like a bowl of ice cream topped with anchovys and ketchup:
“Thumbs down. I rate this a ‘1’”
“What? You don’t like ice cream?”
That first photo looks especially interesting.
Maybe a statistical analysis is needed.
In the last two pages (30 sets) of updates, I count 8 stocking sets, with the stockings worn all the way through to the end.
In the last two pages (30 sets) of archives, I count 1 stocking set, with the stockings removed by the end. But I also count 3 sets where the model starts of shod (and loses her shoes), including that stocking set.
In a group of 30 sets I’ve saved from 2 years ago, I count 4 stocking sets, with the stockings removed in one of them. But I also count 3 sets that start off with shoes and then remove them (including one of the sets above that keep stockings to the end).
In a group of 30 sets I’ve saved from 5 years ago, I count 3 stocking sets, with the stockings removed in 2 of them, plus 3 sets that start with shoes (but without stockings) and have the shoes removed
Now the archive sets and the sets I’ve saved aren’t random samples, but it looks to me like RE has mostly or entirely stopped doing sets where the model starts off with shoes but loses them. It’s also possible that there’s been an increase in the proportion of stocking-foot sets, but an unbiased sample of past sets would be needed to confirm or refute this.
Speaking of Fetishcon, I understand that you and Ariel are planning to go this year (although not necessarily to do any shoots). I’ll be glad of a chance to finally meet you two in person.
My thoughts:
o I’m really not big into video, so I’m not the target audience for a video series.
o I would like to see some still sets of “maximum bondage,” depending on the details. In particular I would like to see some sets where the model is heavily tied in a “skeletal mummification” sort of tie, or well strapped down to some object. I’m not so keen on suspensions or on contorted ties that look (and are) uncomfortable.
o A rule of thumb for what I’d like to see might be “the tie allows the model to relax or go limp, but not to move very much at all if she tries to struggle.” The only problem is that this is not what you’re thinking of for “maximum bondage.” You’ve said that you want the sort of bondage that a model can’t stay in for very long.
o Maybe more spreadeagle ties – a quick search showed only one set currently on RE. Or some creative variant of the classic spreadeagle tie.
o For “political incorrectness” I’ll cheerfully go along with (fictional) sexism and male chauvinism, but I’d like to keep mean-spiritedness and cruelty out of it. There is a difference between sexism and misogyny. Or between racism and race-hatred, e.g. the old joke: “I don’t understand all this hatred towards blacks. Why, my grandpa, he owned a black couple, and they were just two of the nicest people.”
o So I’d like it better if the bad guys are affably evil in their political incorrectness. Rather than have the bad guys rant (“ON YOUR KNEES, BITCH! ON YOUR KNEES LIKE THE WORTHLESS CUNT YOU ARE!”) it would be more – dare I say it – elegant for them to be polite, friendly, and at least superficially kind even as they put their victims through a decidedly non-consensual scenario. They just need a calm, unshakable belief that there is nothing wrong about holding women captive against their well.
o One “politically incorrect” scenario might be “the best thing to do with female criminals is to train & sell them as sex slaves – not only for the safety of society, but for the criminals’ own good.” The storyline can then be about how this is applied without a gram of punitiveness in it:
“I’ll have to insist that you wear this ball-gag, Kate.”
“No! Ga-mmmph! Mmmmtph!”
“Please stop trying to spit it out. You’ll only make your tongue sore.”
“Mmm mmmph mmm mmm mmmph!”
“Yes, my dear, I know you’re angry now. But trust me, a time will come when you look back and see how foolish your are being.”
“Mmmph!”
“Just sit back and relax. That’s better. Now lets see how long you can remain quiet.”
One more suggestion: A slavegirl costume that’s just a skirt. No top, and certainly no stockings. Just a skirt of knee-length or shorter.
For that matter, it would be nice to see a non-“slavegirl” set where the captive is wearing just a skirt for the whole set – starts out topless and stockingless, and ends up topless and stockingless (but not 100% nude). Perhaps the set has the “victim” starting out unbound but stripped to just the skirt of what was a cheerleader/schoolgirl/hooters waitress/secretary/librarian costume (rather than showing her being stripped – i.e. implying that she had lost her other clothing a while back), and then have the photos show more and more bonds being applied.
OK, what happened is that there were two stockinged-to-the-end sets in January (a higher rate than the RE historical average). Then the sets “Vamp girl, or sub pet girl?” “Better than flowers,” and “No dancing with the GIs” all came up within a one-week period, and that tripped my pattern-match alarms. And I do have an over-active pattern-match system. (Doesn’t everyone?
)I’ll look forward to this.
My preference along those lines would be for a model to be tied in a sack with only their bare feet sticking out. (Or maybe with only their heads sticking out, but I think that having only their bare feet sticking out would be more unusual & interesting.)
A zentai mummy bag could be used for that, I suppose, but I don’t know if it would be the best choice.
