This year, for the first time since its inception back in 1992, I attended the Skin Two Rubber Ball Weekend as an outsider. Sort of.
I was an outsider inasmuch as I didn’t have a management pass this year. However, I did have a photography pass for all the events. This meant for all intents and purposes that I had exactly the same access to everything as I’d had in previous years as Skin Two editor, but without any of the responsibility for dealing with any of the problems or complaints inevitably addressed to people on the staff at big events like this.
Your girlfriend is waiting outside the Expo because she doesn’t think she should have to buy a ticket to get in? Not my problem. You asked for a press pass when what you meant to ask for was a photo pass, and now you’re pissed off that they won’t let you into the Ball with your camera? No good complaining to me, mate. You thought the new Skin Two Directory was supposed to be on sale at the Expo? Speak to the publisher, pal, not me. I’m just an observer. Oh happy days.
On the other hand, being in possession of a photo pass confers certain obligations, not least to upload the pick of your pix to the Rubber Ball website within ten days of the event, to supply Torture Garden pix to TG by the same deadline, and to provide Skin Two magazine with a disc of hi-res printable versions within two weeks. That’s all before you can really sit back and think about how you yourself want to use the images you’ve captured.
And if you’re not only trying to do a decent job of reportage but also wanting to hang out a bit with all your friends who’ve come over from Europe and America and Australia, and one of them needs to be taken for hospital treatment twice, at times when you really need to be catching up on your sleep in order to arrive in good time at the next event, then having a photo pass can be seen as rather less of a free ride than it might at first appear.
But I’m really not complaining. In fact I’m very grateful to event manager Hannah Platt for giving me access to all the Skin Two events, and to Charlotte at TG for according me the same privilege at TG’s night.
This year I decided to concentrate on photographing people ‘on the ground’ rather than in the shows, though in the selection here, you can see that not focusing on performances is not exactly a bar to photogenic encounters with fetishism’s finest.
Of the 12 images here, my favourite is the first, a semi-candid shot of Viktoria taking a ciggie break at Torture Garden’s Friday night special (pic 1). The all-black interior of the venue in Vauxhall was not the most conducive to photography, but catching Miss V in profile against the black walls, dressed in one of TG’s striking own-label black-and-white caped latex outfits, was a perfect photo opp I couldn’t resist.
In complete contrast, I shot a virtually unrecognisable Dante Posh in her wonderfully bizarre Pretty Pervy inflatable latex suit (pic 2) wandering around the brightly lit Expo and wondering, I would imagine, how she was going to actually imbibe the contents of the glass she was carrying. Having downed a few cocktails with Miss P in my time, I can attest to the fact that she’s not normally one to settle for miming when a nice drink is involved.
Dutch model Ancilla Tilia has been busily raising her profile in the past year, and quite right too; she’s extremely photogenic in latex or bondage (or both). This shot of her trying to listen to German Fetish Ball organiser René de Parade at the TG night (pic 3) reminds me that she and I first met at last year’s GFB in Berlin — and seem to have bumped into each other at every major event since. I just love her ‘don’t bother me now’ expression here.
Nicholas and Darenzia, photographed at the Rubber Ball (pic 4), are two of my favourite fetish people to bump into anywhere, whether working or just hanging out. I saw quite a lot of them because they were staying with Kip and co at the rented Camden house which now seems to be firmly established as the venue of the best Rubber Ball pre- and after-parties. For the last two years Midori has hosted popular pre-Ball receptions there, and last year’s was notorious for, among other things, an extremely animated lustathon involving Jewell Marceau and Madison Young. This year the main cabaret was provided by Martin Perreault and Bianca Beauchamp, who both revealed boisterous sides to their personalities that I’d previously been blissfully unaware of.
The general standard of audience outfits on display at SeOne for the Ball was as high as last year, with the new Saturday night slot inspiring some wonderful DIY creations alongside all the shop-bought and designer-made fetish gear. And Kaori (aka Gorgeous) is someone who never disappoints in the DIY department. She makes her own one-off latex outfits purely for her own pleasure and has so far refused all attempts by me to persuade her to ‘go professional’. This amazing turquoise outfit complemented by geisha-style white face (pic 5) is almost certainly a reference to a specific movie (‘stage and screen’ being the theme for the evening) but I can’t for the life of me remember which one.
RubberDoll, my fab new pal from Florida, made her UK debut at this year’s Rubber Ball Weekend, performing at the Ball itself and hanging out at the other events with her man Russ in a variety of eye-catching creations. Lovely people, both of them. The relatively demure effect of her full-length red-and-black latex ensemble (pic 6) was wickedly undermined whenever she turned around to reveal its widely cut-away lace-up back with more flesh than latex on show.
The first time I saw this pink rubber baby-doll dress (pic 7) was on a mannequin on the Breathless stand at the Expo. But with all due respect, I have to say that it looked a whole lot better arriving at the Ball on Swedish fetish queen Elva (pic 7). Elva has such gorgeous features that you could dress her in a binliner and she’d still look fabulous, but there’s no point in pretending that this little number doesn’t make the most of all her good points.
As someone at the top of the fetish modelling tree, and frequently gracing the fashion pages and designer ads in magazines like Skin Two, Emily Marilyn is sometimes assumed by perv ‘purists’ to belong to that category of fetish females who think that ‘S&M’ just means ‘stand and model’ (ie they aren’t really ‘into it’). In Emily’s case, this assumption is so far from the truth as to be laughable. Last year, she got roundly whipped by Midori in the Rubber Ball dungeon and this year, guess what, they had a return match. This picture (pic 8) was taken shortly afterwards, with Emily proudly showing off her weals. Respeck!
‘Bound For Trouble’ is the name used by Mya (on the left in pic 9) for her website, and she certainly seems to be living up to it. Just a few months after scaring innocent tourists riding on the London Eye, this whacky LA dom was back here poking her fingers into other people’s business at every opportunity. On this occasion, the (un)fortunate recipient was Chicago’s VonLivid. It all went downhill after this shot was taken (and I’ve got those pictures too). Where were the Rubber Ball’s famous Perv Police when you needed them, eh?
One of several well-known US models making their Rubber Ball Weekend debuts this year, Miss Conduct (pic 10) certainly cut a dash in this cutaway latex number. Miss C, seen here with her Brit boy Martin,
was also one of several US visitors who took the insulation tape route to
modesty, despite Londoners’ attempts to persuade them that you don’t
have to do that in our clubs. It’s almost as if some of these girls like putting insulation tape on their nipples. Or maybe they just like taking it off later.
My penultimate picture shows two more of America’s finest, eyeing each other up at the Ball. Maya, on the left of the pic, is a delightful dom from Chicago who is apparently often thought to be LA dom Veronica’s twin. I have shots of them together and I can see why, but Veronica says you should never tell a woman that she looks like someone else, so you didn’t hear it from me. The equally charming Kendra, right, is a Florida-based fetish and bondage model, whom I last bumped into in her home town of Fort Lauderdale helping Fetish Factory to celebrate their eleventh anniversary. Oh it’s a small world.
Last but not least, it was easy to tell where the venue for the weekend’s Finale party was — it was the club with the City of London Police van parked outside it. The City cops like to keep an eye on events like this, which they generally do by driving up and down every five minutes so as to make sure that no young ladies emerge onto the streets of our financial district inappropriately dressed. At least, that’s what is says in their reports. I’m not absolutely sure what they would have made of Veronica’s Finale outfit (pic 12), but I’m guessing they would have seen right through it.
More of my pictures (150 more to be precise), along with galleries from all the other photographers who shot during Rubber Ball Weekend, can be found at the official Rubber Ball Gallery site. Click on the link below to go there.
