I recently answered this question on Fetlife, but there is so much to say on that it is larger than a comment..
Since I bought a camera photography has grown from an interest into a passion, and combining this with kinbaku, exploring using the camera in play consciously has been very interesting.
The camera has become a tool for me to objectify her, to expose her, to take distance and create different emotions. I don´t try to “hide” that I am taking photos, I want her to know that her vulnerability is being seen and captured in all it´s rawness.
Tying in the sunflower fields in Italy, Summer 2025
I want to witness the emotional vulnerability of the person being tied. Knowing that their feelings will be captured by the lens creates a new way of exposure: emotionally she cannot hide.
Rope Jam at Fem Rope Getaway in Provence, September 2025
When we tie I tend to stay close to her, taking maybe 2 meters of space from her body during the scene. In contrast, the camera prompts me to take more distance and capture the entire setting, scene, location, and how she relates to it.
The distance completely changes the scene and emotions we both feel.
Tying and shooting on the cliffs of Mallorca, July 2025.
Excitement. Longing. loneliness. fear. trust. power.
My heart beats faster, seconds slow, as I see the emotions wash over her – those big brown eyes start searching for me desperately.
I never would have experienced these feelings in a scene if I didn´t take a camera, because I would not otherwise have taken this distance from her.
Shooting in an abandoned radio tower in Lefkada Greece, Summer 2025
Wielding a camera gives me more power: she is in front of the lens and I behind it, both causing and documenting her suffering. It feels very powerful and sadistic to focus and shoot when there is this soft, sad creature before me crying.
From a sadistic scene in the olive groves of Lefkada Greece, summer 2025
In this way the camera becomes a mirror. I don’t just see her, I see myself.
I see what I have done to her. I face my desires and actions and who I am.
I´ve also realised that she can read my mood through the photos I take: close shots of her breasts and genitals reveal my crude thoughts unconsciously.
A playdate at home, November 2025
Walking around her body, slowly shooting up close, no care for her face to be included, she feels deeply objectified, used even.
Photography as a part of play has allowed us to explore deeper into themes of ownership, vulnerability, loneliness, exposure. I no longer take photos to document our progress, to review / critique my own rope work, it is a much more powerful tool for invoking emotions and communicating in-scene, and bringing our fantasies to life.
Aside from the in-scene, I have some lesser motivations for taking photos which relate to my own development personally.
I enjoy a lot to review photos in the days after a scene, to relive the moment and process, as a part of aftercare. Admiring her. Facing myself.
Photography has also helped me understand what elements of beauty are the impactful to me in kinbaku: the models expression, the sense of vulnerability, the story, the location / context and what emotion it transmits, the lighting, and sense of time slowing down, frozen. The best kinbaku photos are the ones where you don´t see the rope – you see the models feeling and vulnerability.
Shooting in an abandoned refuge in the mountains of Italy, summer 2025
Whether or not there’s a camera, these elements can be played with and impact the scene; but I wouldn’t have learned this without taking thousands of photos and studying the work of great photographers and friends whose work I admire.
In the past never used to care for beauty and aesthetic in rope, but I have grown to have a deep appreciation for it, and for how beauty can make a model feel. When I can show Midori how beautiful she is in rope, I feel a sense of pride from honouring everything she gives me.
The “oephelia” summertime shooting in a lake in Italy, 2025
A good photo should make you feel something. When I take one of these tying Midori, it is a treasure, because it allows that feeling to live forever.
Midori hanging on top of the world at the abandoned radio tower of Lefkada, Greece, summer 2025