About

The images in this body of work got their start in Sydney, Australia, in the mid-nineties. I was living in the city for a period of time to build up editorial fashion for my portfolio. A friend in the fashion business introduced me to the owners of a house of fetish popular among both rookie thrill-seekers and veteran kinksters. The club provided a substantial roster of mistresses, submissives and masters available across an eclectic mix of dungeons and themed rooms for sessions — the price of which the club would negotiate with clients according to what they were seeking. The club was private and discreet but they had an address. It wasn't secret. They took walk-ins.

After a period of getting to know the staff, I was invited to make images in the space with a house minder who guided me through the labyrinth of themed rooms with names such as “masters” and “nursery” — all of which had available furniture such as stretching racks and St. Andrews crosses, as well as costume clothing, toys and accessories (shackles, whips, chains, pugs, etc.). We communicated with the main office by way of intercoms. They would ask where we were and sometimes instruct us to hide in a nearby empty room so as to allow a client to pass who didn’t want to be seen.

Working with one assistant, I styled, lit and directed the scenes much as I would a magazine editorial. But once the scene began, I stepped back and tried to simply capture what would organically unfold. There was definitely a learning curve involved as I had to grow comfortable witnessing exchanges between individuals that I had not previously experienced, seen or even imagined (and which initially looked to me from the outside like violence). Over time my impressions and interpretations changed as I began to notice the often profound and moving intimacy that play partners often shared as well as the sense of care that coursed through and guided the whole. It was in that club that I became much more fully aware of what radical consent looked like. All of that — and the power relations that existed so strongly at the center of it all — was what really captured my attention. 

At the heart of every BDSM scene is the conflation and interpenetration of top/dominant energy and bottom/submissive energy. These images seek to document and visualize the variety of ways in which those conflations can manifest. Within the visual language of this particular work, the icon of the shield acts as a symbolic stand-in for the notion of dominance, while the circle acts similarly for the notion of submission. What I find fascinating is the ways in which participants in each scene can be seen to exist between these symbolic poles in the space where Dominance/Submission (D/S) is fluid, reciprocal and interpenetrating. Each image, as well series of images, are studies of this dynamic.