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What A shame!
Great Model, great setting but just lousy picture taking. Lousy and lazy. What a waste of the models time.
Never moved that camera one inch from the original set up. And the ring gag, what a gross out that is.Big disappointment. Really big disapointment. The possibilities were so great. Walking along in her encouterments. Pictures from different sides and angles. High Low, all around.
I have noticed your picture taking equipment inthe back ground of different shoots. Very professional but also very cumbersome. Awkward is the word. You should have a good quality hand held on site too. Something you can dipsy-doodle with. Go here, go there. Up high down low.
Do your super professional picture taking then support it with side shots from all over. The new digital cameras make all this picture taking very affordable. Its not like the good old days of film where every shot had to count and you had to wait until it was developed before you knew what you had and the cost of film and developing was exhorbant.
Now days, take a picture, look at the picture, don’t like it, take another. No cost what-so-ever.AND by the look of the poll results I wasn’t the only one who thought this was not a very good set but, as I said, by the look of the model and the setting it could have been.
curious1, I am sorry you did not like this set. It seems that you do not like quite a lot of the sets on the site. That’s fine- one of the philosophies of Restrained Elegance is that with our one-set-a-day update schedule, we can experiment and shoot different stuff, because there will always be a new set along tomorrow. Of course, we can never please all the people all the time and some sets will be better received than others.
However, I am going to have to ask you to be MUCH more considerate of others in your postings on the forum. The tone of this and previous posts is rude, verging on offensive, and that is not acceptable here.
This set was not shot by me, it was shot by Svampen. He is not a professional photographer, and he and Pling very kindly came along on the Sweden location shoot to work for the site for fun. I really appreciate the participation of members on the site in this way and I will not have people being rude about their work.
Personally I disagree with your assessment of the set, you are factually in error saying that he did not move around, because I was there as they were shooting it and he certainly did. It was shot on a relatively modest Canon digital SLR, so your technical comments are also wide of the mark. But that’s beside the point. I don’t care how much you hate a given set, it is unacceptable to post in that tone on the RE forum.
I do not want any flamewars on this forum. I appreciate that you did not like the set, but please be much more considerate of the people who put hard work into it before making such posts in future.
Hywel
Shame on you (just to keep the tone from your first line.
I think this is a cute set – well, Pling is always cute!
A few more pics before you put in the in my eyes a litlle malplaced ring gag would have been nice – but all in all nice!
Svampen and Pling – keep up the good work (Still an open offer for free lunch in Copenhagen :-))
Alex/HaslerWell said, Hywel!
I really don’t want to to start a war, and I think you have every right not to like a set.
But I agree with Hywell. Maybe you should have said “I don’t like it” in staid of “what a waste of a models time”.Personally, I really like it. My only comment is that there could have been more pictures (however I would probably still think so when you made the set 1000 pic’s).
Gr. Daedra
Hi there,
I believe it is important for people to share their opinions – that is the purpose of having a forum here! Constructive criticism is mostly a good thing but, when it is bordering on offensive, people are likely to miss the point that you are trying to make and just be, erm, offended! If you can’t say anything nice you are best not to say anything at all. Maybe curious1 has misjudged the way the tone of his post would be received and will be more considerate next time. We can hope.
Here’s my two cents in response to the comments anyway:
And the ring gag, what a gross out that is.
Some people like ring gags, some people don’t. Some people like 32AAs, some people like 36DDs. Some people like bare feet, some people like heels. Vive la difference!
I have noticed your picture taking equipment inthe back ground of different shoots. Very professional but also very cumbersome. Awkward is the word. You should have a good quality hand held on site too. Something you can dipsy-doodle with. Go here, go there. Up high down low.
‘Dipsy-doodling’ is all well and good if you want to be chopping and changing to create inconsistent shots that must be a nightmare to process. Most of us handhold our cameras while shooting for Restrained Elegance anyway. They aren’t THAT heavy (though they feel it after a few days of shooting when your shoulders have seized up!).
Big disappointment. Really big disapointment. The possibilities were so great. Walking along in her encouterments. Pictures from different sides and angles. High Low, all around.
Obviously the model is unable to move a lot so we have to move instead – and fast. As well as having to consider the comfort / safety of the model, we are often chasing the light and trompling over difficult terrain to get the best angles. Sometimes you simply can’t GET the angles you want due to rocks and trees being in the way and the light source being in the wrong place. When shooting outside you have to make the best of what you have while it isn’t cloudy or raining, mosquitos aren’t eating the model alive and passers by aren’t passing by. When you add bondage into this equation, time is very much of the essence.
Now days, take a picture, look at the picture, don’t like it, take another. No cost what-so-ever.
No cost what-so-ever if you are on holiday with your family. Can run into hundreds when you consider model fees, photographer fees, location fees, post processing!
AND by the look of the poll results I wasn’t the only one who thought this was not a very good set but, as I said, by the look of the model and the setting it could have been.
By the look of the poll results there are plenty of people who DID think it was a good set. Myself included.
Having worked extensively with Swampen on the Sweden trip, I can say that he is most certainly not a lousy, lazy photographer! He is very dedicated and thorough in his approach and an excellent photographer with a great eye for composition. Some of his angles I would have totally missed – I remember commenting to Hywel about this when I saw his shots from the tutorials!
Kate x
Hi all!
Potentially an interesting point of view but horribly put Curious1..
Of course you can say you think there should be more angles and a poor choice of gag but please respect the effort thats gone into this by doing so a little more constructively. For instance, did it occur there might be a good reason for the narrow choice of angles? I didn’t shoot this and I’m certain Svampen doesn’t need me to defend this but here’s the more obvious reasons from someone who knows a little about what it took to shoot this.
– the rocks a big, covered in lichens etc, vertical drops all around and in the middle of nowhere. It would be pretty stupid to risk breaking your equipment or worse, your legs freeclimbing them to get the shot from above.
– the guys doing the tutorial at the weekend will now know some of the complexity of studio lighting. Its waaay more difficult outdoors, in the woods as the sun is at its lowest is the most difficult I can think of. You can’t just turn the sun down a stop or move a couple of trees to free up some shadow. Look behind Pling and you can see the sheer range of light to shadow varying EVERYWHERE as the light fights its way through the trees – there’s simply no consistancy. This means every time your model moves slightly the light/shadow falling on her face changes completely and you’re continually stopping to re-meter the correct exposure. Add to this every time the photographer moves his angle to the light source changes and may need metering again plus you’re fighting lens flare etc etc. PLUS, lets not forget that even if nobody moves then the low sun will itself move quite quickly which means the shadows through the trees swing across minute by minute and you rapidly loose your levels. I’m impressed there’s as many well exposed shots as there is to be honest, a compact camera in these conditions would not do justice to Restrained Elegance.
– Shooting in relatively low light and without ramping up the ISO needs a v expensive lens, alternatively you can get potentially even better shots using a prime lens (a non – zoom) which is the norm at RE. Downside is the photographer has to keep moving instead of zooming, don’t know if Svampen was able to use his zoom or not but having to use a prime would limit the choice of shot and generally slow the shoot down as he tries not to get hurt scrambling about.
– There’s a commercial reality here, often people comment similarly that a particular shot is missing or could have been improved but fail to realise that we’re not after a perfect shot – we need to get 50+ good shots, often to tell a story and battling with the light as detailed above. There’s a very finite time before your model gets frozen or suffers from the restriction of bondage so you don’t have much time at all to cover the angles, especially in the woods scrambling around on rock and trees in constantly varying light. Pretty soon you simply have to wrap the set, like it or not *that* shot you’d like to get from up on the rocks, up a tree, into the sun, from below, capturing the reflection etc etc isn’t feasible.
Gags aren’t to everyones tastes, which is why they shot the first half of the set without one.
Don’t remember if I gave this a 4 or a 5, I can’t help appreciate this set knowing how challenging it would be to this standard. Nice work guys.
M
I had started to write down my own comments to reply too this post, but I’ve just read through Kate’s and Merlin’s comments and feel their detailed replies combined with Hywel’s thoughts really cover exactly how I feel too.
Yes of course everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, and not every set will suit everyone’s personal taste. But the key point here is to use constructive criticisms and not rude offensive comments.
I was in the forest when this set was shot and like Marlin described, the terrain was tricky to negotiate. Coupled with the fact were shooting bondage material and everyone’s safety is of prime concern, I think Svampen and Pling produced a wonderful set that’s completely in keeping with Retrained Elegance’s high quality and style.
As a photographer, I think Svampen has an excellent eye for taking images from unusual angles that produce beautiful pictures which are extremely eye catching. Having seen a lot of his work from Sweden, I wish I had his natural ability to spot those angles as it does give him a very enviable style to his photography.
Steve
Hello Everyone!
Thank you all for the nice replies!
Thank you curious1 for you comments.
It’s good that you comment the sets and give us your opinions, thats what makes this site better and better.Most of the things I want to say are already said, and everyone who were there knows what conditions we had and made the best out of it.
The equipment was very limited since the shots was obviously in the forest and the light was changing every couple of secound during the shot.
Since you are talking about the cost for taking the pictures, I can tell you that the cost is not the biggest problem, time is, the model cannot stay tied for ever just because the photografer need more angles/pictures.So keep on posting your thoughts and comments on the forum, your opinions are important.
I have 3 things I wish you consider next time you have any opinion on other peoples work.
1: Be constructive and give useful feedback and not personal assumptions on things.
2: The model had a lot of fun during the shot and I dont think she thought the time was wasted in any way, please dont speak for anyone else if you weren’t on the scene.
3: Nothing anyone does is lousy or lazy, only because something is not your kind of tast doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hard job doing it.Think about these things and I believe your posts will be a lot more appreciated.
Thank you all!
How very rude.
You know I am not going to launch into a detailed chat about the photography – there are people far more qualified to do that in this forum and they have, very well.
I actually quite liked the set (I went back and studied it in more detail after reading Curious 1’s comments and I have some sympathy with his dislike of the gag but would disagree with his comment about the photographer not moving around – to my eyes he did) and I’ll tell you for why. This site has grown in recent years to be far more than just your run-of-the-mill bondage website. As the response to your post will testify it is increasingly becoming a community, brought about by this forum (and particularly the arrival of Ariel into the forum). Today’s set (the one you disliked so very much) reflects just how far that community has come. Pling and Svampen were members – just like me and (I presume) you. Through a combination of Pling’s bravery(?), Hywels willingness to shoot and feature an amateur model on the site and Svampens willingness to alllow Pling to do this and to get involved with the photography himself we are privilaged to see the results on this site (can you think of another site where this would happen?). Likewise we often now see sets on the site shot by two other members of this forum (Steve and Merlin) and it is great to see their creativity being introduced to the site albeit in a style compatible with the look and feel of the site that Hywel has worked so hard to establish (I have even recently become an RE photographer myself!)
I really look forward to Pling-shoots. Of course she is beautiful, but I think her relative inexperience of bondage modeling coupled with her natural submissiveness and the knowledge of how Pling and Svampen have come to feature on the site add so much to the sets in which she features. Looking at today’s set it is clear that Pling is loving being tied up (I don’t know but it is not hard to imagine that, that it was Svampen doing the bondage and photography, might have added to the joy) and Svampen has captured this fantastically. In my opinion RE stands alone in the quality of its photography and there is not one of Svampens shots that look out of place amongst that high standard of photography (I have to confess I wasn’t so sure when Hywel first floated the idea of other photographers on the site – his standard was so high – but I haven’t been disappointed yet)
Pling or Svampen – I would be really upset if Curious 1’s comments affect your view of the site or your decision to feature on it. I think your work is of a very high standard – and as I have already said I liked today’s update.
As has already been suggested – only constructive comments in future please!
CD (James)
Ps – I made a mistake once. Apologising was hard but I felt better afterwards. Go on Mr Curious 1 give it a go – I for one would respect you for it
PPs
Some people like 32AAs, some people like 36DDs. Some people like bare feet, some people like heels
I think everyone prefers barefeet – even those who haven’t realised it yet! 32AA’s, 36DD’s? I don’t have a favorite battery size! Odd – though I do use AAA’s quite a lot.
Wikipedia defines a troll as someone who posts controversial, inflammatory… …messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response.
I think the first two sentences of curious1’s post match that definition quite well.
I did think the set was a little mixed, some stand-out shots and some weren’t quite right, but I can appreciate that in that lovely woodland setting the photography is somewhat more challenging than in the studio.
As for the ring gag, generally I quite like ring gags, although I will admit that I’m not sure if it really suits Pling, I think other styles of gag look better on her.
Thank you all for your supportive and interesting posts, and for resisting the urge to start flame wars.
As others have said better than I, critical posts are very welcome on the forum. None of us would pretend to be the world’s best photographer, and it always helps to have feedback to try next time. Even if the practicalities of the shoot have to take precedence, it is nice to bear these suggestions in mind for the future.
My only requirement is that the discussions be carried on politely and respectfully to each other, to the photographers and riggers, and most especially to the models, without whom there would be no site to look at. Thanks to all who have posted on the thread for doing so in such considered and thoughtful terms.
Cheers, Hywel.
Hi all,
Thank you for your nice replies!
The things I want to say has already been explained better from others,
I like this set a lot becasue it´s in a lovely enviroment, it was a whole lot fun to shoot and it was one of the first sets I shoot on the Swedentrip. Svampen and others who were in Sweden have put a lot of work into it. So for me it was definetly not a waste of my time.
One of the things I like with RE is the forum where people are nice to each other. And that you can says what you like and dislike about a set, as long as it´s in a nice constructive way.
Pling
Having read through all the posts on this issue, I wanted to add in my thoughts. I’ve been a site member for something over two years now but have really only started participating on the forum along about the time the chats started and I have participated in all but one of them. RE is one of a rare few sites that I have encountered that has made the change from being the ideas and preferances of the site originator to becoming a community. I enjoy that aspect of the site a lot. To be sure there are common threads but there is also room for the likes, dislikes and opinions of the many. This thread could have easily started a fire storm but it is so refreshing to see how everyone responed with such… well… Restrained Elegance.
As far as the set in question goes, I liked it and rated it a 4. I don’t feel that the comments made by the original poster are well founded. The set was clearly centered around the larger rock Pling was on and there were views from different sides of the rock as well as different heights. Obviously in an outdoor setting the photographer may well be limited as to the positions from were shots can be taken because of concerns for the safety of the model given her position, the topography of the area as well as the ever changing position of the sun which is more noticable just after dawn and just before sunset. While I like ring gags in general I would probably have gone with a cleave gag in that setting, but hey that’s just me. I could make further comments but I would be repeating what others have already said so well. Plus many of those comments were from the people actually present during the shoot so that commands a lot of my respect.
Beyond what one might like or dislike about the set the important thing to remember, in my view, is that Svampen and Pling are not bondage photography or video professionals. They are private people who happen to enjoy bondage and are site members who are kind enough to share a part of their relationship with the wider community. To that I can only say “Many Thanks as this is a rare and valuable thing and I’m sure that the vast majority of the RE community values and appreciates your participation and looks forward to seeing more of your joint efforts in the future.”
Everyone has thier own set of likes and dislikes and that is the way it should be and each bondage based website will have its own base guidelines. If you enjoy what you see then great. If you don’t then everyone has the right to make suggestions and/or constructive criticism. If the site chooses not to change or goes in a direction you don’t care for but their policy does not cross your individual boundries then you stay, otherwise you take your money and time and go elsewhere. The tone of the original post, in my opinion, does cross the line beyond a consturctive nature and flaming holds little purpose. Wasn’t aware Wikipedia had defined “Troll” (Thanks for the chuckle Foganne) but it does seem to fit here.
Thanks to all for the comments and many thanks to all the varried people behind the scenes at RE and to all the lovely ladies appearing in front of the cameras for what has come and what is still to come.
Greetings and cheers from the eastern USA,
Jeff
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