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To each his own

B...OZ Fantasy Island

You wrote
"I do publish.

I do shoot.

I do invest my own dough. (What gave you the impression that I didn't?) "

Considering you never tell anyone on the forum WHO you are, and the fact that I'm not psychic, I think they were fair comments!

I don't hide behind an alias and slag editors and models off, if I do that I at least have the balls to let them know who is doing it!


Over to you........Mr. anonomous

Again I feel you have missed the whole point of my message. I look at the "top shelf" mags and they are ALL the same. In the 80's Mayfair was the more classy, then Men Only, you then looked at Clud for a different approach. The other mags again all had their own approach and style. Yes some of the girls appeared under different names in the mags, but on the whole there was an air of presentation that is not being matched by ANY magazine on the market.

The general idea is not to look back with rose coloured specs but to say that the whole UK top shelf magazine market is totally boring. From the models, photographers to editors and art editors there just seems to be "get it" and no attention to what the public gets.....one of the reasons that this area is in decline.

Sorry if I have started something but I do feel that this business needs a shake up !

cheers

Which raises the question...Why is it totally boring?

I'm no expert but IMHO saturation is to blame...it dulls the mind
Sets that are special become boring in the viewers mind because you've seen her over and over which is a little unfair

A recent set I saw of Jo Guest(10,000 pics and counting)in Mens Only...took my breathe away.Set against the background of Storm Clouds it was quite an exceptional set IMHO.

In the past a mag would come out once a month with models not seen anywhere else or at the very worst in another mag

Compare that to todays market...you've got girls appearing in mags,videos,websites etc.

cheers
B...OZ

Quite right

Most of the sets today are totally crap, the days of the lingerie coordinating with a vase of flowerss etc. are over...all they do now is "open as wide as you can luv...eh ?"

?you never tell anyone on the forum WHO you are?

There would be no point in saying who I was as I?m not a public figure and those who did not already know me would be none the wiser. Most of the industry characters that post on the forum do know me personally (and also know me as The Officer) and I?m sure most would agree that in real life I?m not such a bad chap. But in my position I feel it prudent to simply define myself here by whom I know and what I?ve done.

The opaque cloak of anonymity in which I clothe myself does allow me to speak more freely than I otherwise might. I feel this is a positive thing as one can say what one really feels, tell the unpalatable truth, get it out in the open, kick it around, instead of doing what we all do from time to time ? avoid aggro, take the route to a quite life, mouth platitudes, tell our colleagues that yes their last movie "was a masterpiece" or tell the models ?Darling, you look absolutely scrumptious today? when we don?t really mean it and sometimes mean quite the opposite.

Hey, I understand your touchiness ? you really dig all that stuff which The Officer puts his boot into and so you feel a need to defend your corner, to justify it. But it?s OK dude, The Officer understands. He?s a liberal when it comes to sex and wants all consenting adults to happy, to be able to do their thing without the censure of pompous, sanctimonious, hypocrites. But the point I?m making is simply that what we may like personally may not be the same as what mainstream consumers like or find palatable. They vote with their wallets and personal experience suggests to me that punters are not in the slightest bit keen on new ?PornPerfomer? type models, but they do still do hold a torch for most of the previous decades glamour girls and that whole style of visual erotica. Maybe your experience is different?

But you needn?t worry. However much the Officer whinges and wines it won?t change anything. Things will continue on their present course. The genie is out of the bottle and now everyone is a producer/publisher. In future no one, who has not already done so, will be able to marshal enough financial resources and weight to be able to lean on porn?s tiller. We?re adrift, becalmed in a Sargasso of low quality, low standard, amateur producing and publishing. We may never see land again.

On a more positive note, someone recently drew my attention to one of your photo sets - Emma Caesar on a desert island Both the model and the shots were superb and really wowed The Officer. But it left me perplexed as to how you could possibly go from that to championing the other?

Dibble ? in measured and reflective mode.

Okay, here we go.

Another thread complaining about the state of adult mags in the year 2003, and how they aren't as good as those of the 80s.

As someone who edited mags in the 80s (albeit the very late 80s), and who now edits Mayfair and MensWorld, I'm pretty well placed to chuck my own 10 pence into the ring.

First, Buttsie, the Jo Guest set you liked so much (thanks!) was in MensWorld, because that's the only title she's contracted to for nekkid piccies.

Secondly, someone mentioned saturation of the market, and they're not wrong. Think back to the 80s and ask yourself where you could see nudity in the media? The occasional fruity French flick on BBC2, Page 3 and top shelf mags. So where did all the Brit girls go? Pole dancing/lap dancing/escorting/hooking, because they can make more money and there's less stigma attached. How many people read adult mags versus visit any given lapdance club?

Where did the photographers go? To Eastern Europe in search of cheaper models who'd do far more for less cash.

I've said it before on numerous occasions, but I'll do so again? the US market drives magazine photography in the UK, and anyone who argues the case isn't living in the real world. So when the US demands teeny white cotton knicker sets, the knock-on effect is that UK mags are deluged with them. If a snapper can make anything up to 3000 bucks selling a set of a teeny in white knicks to a US mag against well less than half that to a UK mag who'll want stockings and suspenders, the Yanks are going to get the first call and then the UK rights on the set are just gravy to the snapper.

It's economics, pure and simple.

And to Officer Dibble, a regular on the forum, if John Mason paid a girl 2000 quid for a shoot, just where do you think he'd recoup the money, when most magazines pay 400-650 quid per set? I know how much John spent on that trip to the Seychelles (where he shot the Emma Caesari set which I ran nigh on nine years ago in a previous incarnation) and how long it took him to claw the money back. Trust me, if John had made a serious profit on that trip, he'd shoot out there every month because he's a smart businessman.

As with hardcore videos, the real money is in the US, not the UK. Magazine editors like me do the best we can with the material available, with the budgets available.

Mikey, your argument that all the magazines are the same just doesn't hold water, I'm afraid. The stylistic differences between Razzle and Club or Escort and Mayfair are so glaring I'm not even going to point them out.

We can't go back to the 80s, because too much has changed. Magazines have become stronger in content (I remember even in the early 90s, we weren't allowed to show bumholes in the mags!) although Mayfair is, I think, one of the only titles left which doesn't show pink shots. And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get a set where the girls isn't wrapping her lips around her thighs!

The US market drives adult publishing in the UK. It's a fact of life if you work on a high end adult title.

I was only saying that the differences between the magazines is NOT as defined as in previous years.

And on that bomb shell I shall head to the attic and dig out my Gaynor Bell, Steph Bews etc and all the "classy" shot girls from the time I still think was best.


I wonder if I could get my Focus up to 88 mph and go back to the future ??

Ah, Gaynor Bell, Steph, Andrea Clarke... all great, great girls. And let's not forget Kirsten Imrie, either.

Thing is, in those days, we could get the top Page 3 girls to whip them off. Not anymore, though.

Yawnzzzzzzzzzzz?????

Here we go again with the rather tiresome 'magazines are shit/not as good as they used to be' debate?

What exactly is it that you moaners want? Replica copies of Fiesta, Mayfair, Knave etc. from 1982 - 1987 put back on the shelves? There's a whole host of tasty British porn girls out there, if only you'd stop living in the past for one second and actually gave them a chance. The 1980s are over, get used to it and per-lease shut the f*ck up about how things were so much better then!

As an Editor I'd love to personally direct each shoot in terms of style and content and fully control the look of the mag, but what I want in the mag probably isn't what sells in America so, unless a photographer wants to lose money on a shoot, it ain't gonna happen.

As for Mikey who wrote:
"Again I feel you have missed the whole point of my message. I look at the "top shelf" mags and they are ALL the same."

"ALL the same"?
Exactly when did you last look at the top shelf? There's a world of difference between the 'rough and ready' mags like Escort, Razzle and Ravers, and the likes of Mayfair, Club and Knave which all go for the 'classier' look. And then there's the hardcore mags (a welcome addition to the top shelf judging by the sales) and all the niche mags like Naughty 40s, Asian Babes etc. Is there really nothing there that excites you?