Not dead yet

Since it's been over 2 months since my last post, I just want to reassure everyone (yes, both of you!) that I'm still alive.

I've been feeling a little stretched: happy to spend time with friends, but without the energy to push myself out into the wider world and engage with people I don't know yet. I think I've been running on emotional overdrive since Niki left, and now the engine is running out of steam. So I've been pulling in my horns a bit until my batteries are recharged. [There's nothing like a mixed metaphor!]

I'm not short of kinky thoughts, just the energy to craft and hone them. But I'll be back!

But in the mean time, let me tell you about one of my longer-term projects. I have always been an admirer of Alan Bell, the photographer behind the early days of Blushes magazine (who also appeared in a few videos, such as the iconic Room 2D from Roue). His particular mastery was to extract expressions of shame and embarrassment from his models, to catch them in pensive moments of anticipation.

I don't have that skill yet, but I'd love to acquire it. So my project is to pick a few of his most evocative photos and try to reproduce them: not exactly, but enough to capture the expression and emotions of the model. I plan to post a few of my favourites here, and ask for comments on just what it is that they convey: what was the girl thinking, what was she feeling?

Niki and I made a start on this a few years ago, with a set of photos of a reformatory caning in wet punishment shorts.




The top one one is the original Blushes photo, and the bottom one is our recreation. I didn't manage to catch Niki's face in that particular shot, but I love the way the rivulets of water cascade down her legs, pouring into and through the tight shorts.

What thoughts are going through her mind as the cold water soaks her shorts, held tight between her legs by a doubled cord? Soon the cane will be gliding over her cheeks, probing and tapping. Soon it will lift up. What will come next? Will the tapping resume, keeping her in suspense? Or will the cane cleave the air with its characteristic swish and cut hard into her waiting bottom?

Of course I don't really know which shoots were Alan Bell's. I fancy I know his style, but it's always possible that someone else was responsible for a particular shoot or set. If one of my readers knows better than me, please tell me!

A footnote: Blushes had a habit of reusing photo shoots, often with a slightly different set of photos and quite different stories attached. The original of this particular shoot was in Blushes Supplement 2, which I think was published in about March 1985. But the particular photo reproduced above is not in that issue. Some time I must make a compilation of which photosets were repeated in which issues, so that I can collect all the different photos into a coherent set. Yes, I'm that OCD.