Bound and Gagged |
Interview with Bondage Photographer/Rigger Hywel Phillips
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Interview by Lorelei Where's your website, so we can go take a look? That's basically where my photography rested for the next ten years: slide film, 35 mm cameras, landscape photos. Did I have any practical use for the photos? Yes, sort-of. I've been into roleplaying games (the Dungeons and Dragons sort) for years and at the time I was writing grand sprawling baroque fantasy epics for my friends. When I had a game which centered around standing stones as places of power, I went on a field trip with my camera and shot photos of as many as I could- then when it came up in the game I had a slide projector to show them what their characters could see. I used to put a huge amount effort into telling the stories in my head this way- these days I use the same set of mental muscles to do photoshoots! So were my degrees totally useless? Far from it. When I finally took up photography professionally, the world was just making the transition to digital imaging. With my particle physics and electronics background I understood at a very deep level every bit of a camera, from the optics of the lenses through to the way a CCD or CMOS sensor works. I had also worked at CERN where the world wide web was invented (and which was very close to the mountains!) so I was completely up to speed on developing websites before most of the world had even heard of it. How did you happen to get into doing bondage and fetish work? Bear with me, that is a parallel story which also starts in childhood. It does make sense but it doesn't meet up with the photography thread for about 25 years! I've been into bondage as long as I can remember. Seriously, I can remember having bondage fantasies in nursery school. The lone ranger trying to rescue the tied-up damsel from the mines (with hissing sticks of dynamite)... oh yeh. That rung a bell. Didn't know what at the time, but I knew what I liked and that was it! I can't have been more than four years old. For some reason, I kept this fairly quiet. I couldn't tell you why, except that I guess it was on a par with the hardcore porno magazines surreptitiously passed around in school. I was famous for being the sixth-form softcore porn specialist: I liked photos of beautiful women looking elegant and gorgeous (OK and sometimes naked and always barefoot- go figure). Gynaecological photos didn't do anything for me then and I they don't do anything for me now. So while I was totally open about liking photos of pretty girls all over my walls, I didn't have bondage photos on my walls. Not that I had any bondage photos. My early sources of bondage were a very occasional illustration or photo from mainstream publications, a few books, and an awful lot of collage which I made myself, cutting out a photo from a magazine and putting the girl into all sorts of deathtraps and dungeons. A Dutch bondage magazine purloined on holiday was about my only genuine bondage photos. When I went to University I was free to explore more- no web in those days, so it was the small ads for custom photosets in the back of photography magazines. I ordered a few sets- the quality was mostly awful but one or two photos worked, and reinforced what I liked- gorgeous barefoot girls in bondage, being punished or tortured but still looking elegant and perfect. Looking back, I can't imagine why I didn't put two and two together and go hire a model and shoot my own bondage photos. I guess I had come at it originally more from a damsel in distress angle, so it was more about torture and deathtraps at the time? Dunno. I got into painting and drawing- sometimes mountains, sometimes people in the mountains, sometimes fantasy characters and scenes for my roleplaying games. I managed to teach myself the rudiments of art though it never quite flowed- I had these incredibly strong, vivid images in my head and I really tried to get them down on paper, but there was no "undo" button with an airbrush and I was usually disappointed with the end results. When I drew pretty women (which I usually did) I drew them based on references from my still-extensive softcore porn collection. I'm not talented enough to be able to draw a person without detailed references. I used to try doing improved version of my bondage collages but it never really worked. The next step was the computer revolution: bondage photos on the web and computer generated artwork. On a very dull day in the shift control room on the experiment where I was doing my Ph.D., some other disreputable student type introduced me to Usenet. The second or third photo I ever saw was one of Felix Dartmouth's photos of Dana: this one http://www.archw.com/images/models/archw_dana_1.jpg I was smitten. That's still one of my favourite bondage images. Her eyes, her dress, the understated bondage.. loved it. |
The penultimate step in becoming a bondage photographer was that I started to draw pencil-and-paper portraits. I started with friends, then did some portraits of my favourite bondage models (starting with Sara Nychols- hi Sara!) I liked them, and I sent some to the models and they liked them, and I nervously asked the photographers whose work I was ripping off by drawing portraits based on their photos... and they liked them. Aha! A career as a bondage artist beckoning? Not really. I'm not that good an artist, and I felt I was copying other people's work. Aha! I know... I'll take some of my OWN photos of bondage models, then I'll be able to draw portraits without ripping people off!The first bondage model I photographed was Molly Matthews when I was out in California for a conference. I didn't tie her up- just had lunch and took some smiley snapshots. I'd been a big fan because she did a lot of barefoot bondage and foot punishment. Even then, the idea of actually doing a BONDAGE shoot with her didn't really cross my mind. Strange! The pencil and paper portrait of her is based on one of my own photos. Anyway, even I had started to realise that maybe I wanted to take bondage photos, although I was still imagining that I would draw from them rather than regard them as finished art in their own right. |
Sara Nychols |
Sara Nychols |
Molly Matthews |
Ashley Renee |
Nichole Sheridan |
Andrea Neal |
Andrea Neal |
What was your first bondage shoot like? Do any memories about it stand
out? I'll cheat and answer this one three times. Obviously I twisted my wife's arm to model for me, but she is not so much camera shy as camera-phobic and she was only too happy when I sodded off and found some poor model to put in front of the scary lights and scary camera. My first real bondage shoot was with a couple who had just opened a bondage website in the UK. It was the first I'd heard of, and I was very keen to work with them because they were local, Michelle the model obviously didn't mind being tied up although her partner Dan was going to do that on the day. Plus the photography on the site wasn't anything special: I felt I could do at least as good a job as a camera on a self timer! |
I loved the shots! I proudly posted them to various places, most especially the Bondage Photographers Yahoo group. Several
bondage photographers were kind enough to take the time to give some constructive criticism (many thanks in particular to
Phil Carson for comments on lighting).
But I still hadn't done the tying up myself, so I'd only gone half way. Plus something Dan said really struck a chord with me. He said what he liked in bondage photographs was the submissive's situation: how she was tied, the predicament she was in. He didn't want to focus on her at all, just on her situation.
I realised that was exactly and precisely the complete opposite of what
I wanted to shoot. Damn it, I didn't want to tie up any old person off
the street, I wanted to tie up ANDREA NEAL or ASHLEY RENEE or KYLIE
MINOGUE (two out of three ain't bad- my dream shoot is still a two girl
bondage shoot with Kylie & Danii Mingoue! :-) Nikki photos by Hywel: 1 2 3 4 5
I loved the results even more. I did a few drawings based on them, but
I rapidly realised that I preferred the photos. It had only taken me
some twenty five or so years to put the photography and the bondage
together! What's a typical bondage shoot like? It
used to be hell because I used to shoot everything in my
house! So I used to have to start at 6 am to convert our
living room into a photo studio. I got myself a proper photostudio last
September, so now it is a bit more relaxed.
What bondage positions do you like best? Leather
is OK- I've got some stunning cuffs in white leather which were made
for me especially by top to bottom leathers (as usual, they tend to
sell bondage gear in any colour you like so long as it's black). They
are padded with lambswool inside the leather so they are very
comfortable for the submissive to wear, but they can be locked closed
with little padlocks so they are inescapable. What types of storylines or themes do you prefer to work on? Love bondage, damsel in distress, sexual girl/girl themes, high fetish, adventure, glamour bondage...? Whatever I do, it is always first and foremost glamour bondage. So she's a captured princess being menaced by the evil baron?
Sure, but does she look BEAUTIFUL? So she's a wanton slavegirl dressed in rubber worshipping the feet of her goddess
mistress? Yeh, but does she look GOOD doing it? Who have you worked with? Describe one of the worst bondage shoots you can remember. Urgh.
Well, the model no-shows are pretty bad (seriously girls, shit happens
to everyone so everyone will have to no-show sometimes but common
courtesy dictates that you should at least send me a text as soon as
you know you can't make it). Jasmine's First Shoot with Hywel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Remember, back then I'd only worked with a handful of models. I thought
they might all be like Jasmine! But right after the shoot I posted
samples on boards and said on my portrait site that I thought Jasmine
was going to be a superstar. Hywel's work can be viewed at RestrainedElegance.com.
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Images provided by Hywel Phillips for this interview are copyrighted by Hywel Phillips. They are not for reposting elsewhere without written consent of the copyright owner.