Japanese Bondage

Tomorrow I'm delivering 20 prints of my Japanese Bondage set to a gallery in East London, photos below:

This is a first in a few ways, it's the first time I've shot a set of images inspired by and primarily for a specific event, information page for the event here - www.japaneseartropebondage.blogspot.com - The bondage I do is not pure shibari, it's not pure anything, I am inspired by ropework from many places, rigging on ships, macramé, shibari, anywhere and this blends together into 'my style' (if such a thing is definable), this set is a salute to the commonly held origins of rope bondage as we know it in the west, Japan.

I planned this shoot with several elements,
1st I needed a japanese model, no problem as one lives not far from me and I worked with her a few months ago on my current book.
2nd I needed a setting, luckily my home has wooden floors and bamboo screens around the computers, and we'd just taken delivery of several tatami mats.
3rd thing I needed was alot of hemp rope, something thats not a problem around here as I use it all the time.

My model for the day also brought along some beautiful kimono, which added alot
to the feel of the set. We worked together for most of the day, trying a few
ties and a few changes of kimono and the editing of the images took a further
two days.
I had them printed with mounts on 10x12 paper complete with my
logo/stamp on them, as seen above (and a larger slideshow below in a previous
post), they are all framed in black wooden frames and labelled with their
details, most significantly their status as 'unique editions'.

The idea of unique editions is a new one to my photography, previously my work (that isn't specifically licensed for a use) has been open editions or limited editions of 10 or 20, a unique edition has only one print made of it for sale and there will be only one copy to own. I hope this
completes the bespoke nature of this set of 20 and reflects the time, thought and effort that went into the creation of each and every photograph.

They will be available from the event for 4 days at the end of this week in East London -
www.japaneseartropebondage.blogspot.com - and any remaining will be available via my websites and possibly future events.