The space a lens makes

My journey with rope has always been deeply entangled with my journey as a photographer. The spring of my freshman year of college I took my first photo class just to see if I'd like it. Near the end of that semester I met Emma and Virgil who introduced me to rope. At a house party that summer I would take some really shitty photos of a scene where Virgil did some lacing on Em and then hit her with boxing gloves on. The scene was a lot of fun and my photos were terrible, nigh unusable. For the first assignment in my intro to digital photography class that fall I set up time to take photos of Em and Virgil tying, this time with more lighting.

These aren't great photos. Many of them are out of focus and I don't think I did any editing of any kind including cropping to these. I took no care in background or any kind of camera setting choices yet. Even then, when I look at these I can see the roots of photography I do today. The choices of angles in particular and the desire to photograph not just the rope and the bottom, but the relationship between top and bottom and the action of tying.

My interest in rope would remain purely that of a photographers for another 6 months while Nea started their journey in rope. In the spring of 2018 I started self tying and by that summer I was tying Nea. Even then, my first time suspending Nea was for a photo-shoot in a laundromat which is a story for another time. (One of those, this was absolutely a bad idea but we got lucky and it's cool now kinda things.)

10 months after those first photos and my relationship with both my camera and with rope had dramatically changed. This was a major turning point in both areas for me. This was one of the first times I had planned an image like this and had it turn out the way I wanted. I dove head first into tying and photography was becoming not just something I was vaguely interested in, but part of who I was.

Like many people starting out, I didn't have my own space so practice and scening all happened at the local kink club. The local play-space allowed photos, but only if you get a play space monitor (PSM) to come over and make sure there isn't anyone else in the photos. I was also starting to shoot film more and more which required more light than was readily available on a play night. Because of this, I rarely, if ever, took photos when playing there. I didn't think about it, it was just the way it was.

In late 2019, early 2020 two important things happened that deeply impacted the way I thought about rope and photos. The first was that during a game of riggers chess the other rigger had the PSM observe us so that they could take cell phone pics the whole time. I remember talking with Nea on the drive home that night about how it felt strange but I wasn't sure why as I was used to taking pictures outside of the club.

The second was that during Snowbound 2020, I had the pleasure of attending DWL and Bex's class on photo rigging. One of the things that they talked about was how to build a scene where the camera doesn't take away from the rope. That snowbound was deeply introspective for me to such a degree that I actually had to renegotiate all my standing rope relationships after coming home (again, a story for another time), but the idea of being purposeful with how the camera interacts with the scene was one of the big ones.

Because the thing is, the camera inherently creates distance between you and the subject. One of my favorite photography teachers always told us that photography is a subtractive art. When you stand behind the lens, you are automatically subtracted from the image even while being the driving force behind it. So how do you keep yourself in a scene while welding a tool that wants to remove you? For me, I try to remain consciously present. The act of taking a photo has to bring me joy, it has to be part of the kink or I automatically subjugated to an observer instead of a participant. Even then, there is space and I have to make a point to fill it, to hold it, to use it.

I also make a conscious effort not to photograph my scenes. When I play in a party setting I don't take photos, I make a point of just being present with the rope in a very different way. I tie for now, for the feelings only rope can give, for the joy. These are usually the meanest, and also the most memorably scenes for Nea and I. There is a deepness that I just can't ever hit with the space of a lens between us.