Ariel's Karada Story

Added 19-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, barefoot, bedroom, blonde, nude, crotch rope

When we shoot on location, we sometimes split into multiple shooting teams. Which means sometimes the first thing I know about what they shot is when we look at the sets together in the evening of the trip. Sometimes I am informed in all seriousness what the name of the set is going to be. Sometimes there is an explanation as to why and what the story was. Or sometimes, as in this case, no explanation at all. Which is why I am as mystified as you that this story is officially entitled "Ariel: Queen Slut Karada". Fill in the gaps by looking at the photos and inventing your own story, if you would! :-)

Click for full-size preview pic

Has The Shoe Thief Gone Too Far?

Added 18-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, ballgag, shoes, skirt, brunette, denim, outdoor, pantyhose

This time the sinister show thief may have gone too far- he's tied up his own neighbour in her back garden! Even though he is masked there is surely a big risk that the girl-next-door might recognise him? But he has been driven mad by seeing her flaunt her legs day in day out, and the urge to steal her shoes and leave her bound, gagged and helpless in her pantyhose was just too strong! The last (for now!) in our series of commissioned custom pantyhose bondage photosets!

Click for full-size preview pic

Lucy Lauren: Policewoman to Sex Slave

... to Sex Slave

Added 17-11-2018

Tags: ballgag, barefoot, handcuffs, blouse, shoes, humiliation, single glove, skirt, slave training, leg irons, chains, metal bondage, nude, drama, dungeon, uniform

Police officer Lucy Lauren has been called out to a strange old house on the edge of town. As soon as she gets through the door she is jumped by two assailants who lock her up in her own speed-cuffs and gag her with a ball-gag! They subject her to a metal hog-shackle, locking her in leg irons and leaving her to struggle and moan and plead through the gag as she tries to escape. They take compromising photos of her and strip her on camera to prepare her for sale as a sex slave!

Next they take her to the auction house and film her naked in the dungeon, still ball-gagged but now stripped of her uniform and laced into an inescapable arm binder, laced tight to pull her elbows together behind her back!

Fantastic energetic sexy struggling from Lucy Lauren in this video and the full slave auction video including Ariel's POV as the auctioneer!

Kidnapped Model!

Added 16-11-2018

Tags: barefoot, handcuffs, blonde, shackles, sm factory, leg irons, chains, metal bondage, collar, nude, nude in metal, dungeon, ungagged

Stunning model Stephanie is kidnapped on her to her photoshoot! Forced to strip naked, her abductor locks her in cold steel cuffs, chains her naked on the cold stone floor of the dungeon, and takes pictures to sell on the internet!

All of which is almost-literally-true, except that it was Stephanie's idea for me to "kidnap" her for a couple of sets before she drove off to her main shoot that day (with Natalia Forrest- sorry for stealing your model, Natalia!)

Hannah's Flying Hogtie

Added 14-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, barefoot, bedroom, blonde, lingerie

Everyone loves a hogtie, but it is nice to mix it up sometimes. The flying hogtie is a great variant position, sort of a crossed-over spread-eagle where arms are tied off to anchor points behind, and ankles to anchor points in front. As very sexily and elegantly demonstrated here by the delightful Hannah Claydon, enjoying the novel new experience!

Wanton Excess

Added 12-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, ballgown, barefoot, satin, blonde, silk

Satin-clad slave seduction from stunning Tillie as she shows you the ropes- and lets you know exactly what she wants you to do with her!

Hywel's note: the lighting for this set was an experiment mixing ringflash with backlight. I like the way it retains the characteristic shadowless skin purity of ringflash with a bit of the glamour effect of rim-light and hair-light. In retrospect, I'd probably have turned the back light up a bit, or maybe tried it with a second person rotating around Tillie holding the backlight by hand so we always had the two lights 180 degrees apart- will try that next time!

Conservatory Chairtie

Added 11-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, rope gag, barefoot, blonde, jeans, lingerie, denim

The delightful @UKCuteGirl Lucy Lauren is a delicious damsel bound barefoot wrapped in rope, gagged with a tight rope gag, a perfect damsel in blue denim!

Ariel's Rope Marks

Added 10-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, girlgirl, barefoot, satin, blonde, brunette

Ariel and Zoe are away together on a walking weekend... but Ariel still has some marks left on her from her Friday night farewell to her boyfriend. Zoe is shocked when she notices and asks her friend what it is all about. "Is he beating her up?" "No, not at all", says Ariel, excitedly, "Its nothing like that! It's erotic rope bondage!"

"What is it? I don't understand?"

"He ties me up! Then we have sex... and I'm tied up! And there's nothing I can do about it!"

Ariel tells all to Zoe- but Zoe needs to see for herself. Zoe asks to be tied up so she can see what it is like! ("Yuo're not going to have sex with me are you?" "Oh my god no but if you like it you can totally try it with John!")

Ariel shows off the soft but effective bondage rope that her boyfriend bought for her- and starts to practice on her friend! Zoe is tied arched back on a bench. Ariel ties Zoe's feet pulled back to her waist rope, and her wrists up above her head- leaving Zoe's satin-clad torso totally vulnerable! What will Zoe make of this exciting new discovery- bondage?

Bad Dolly's Toe-Tied Hog-Tie

Added 09-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, barefoot, blonde, hogtie, dress, toe tie

Why don't we do more toe ties? I really like them. I guess because to do it properly you need thinner cord than our usual bondage ropes. I should see what other colours I can get hold of to match up with the larger diameter ropes. Really enjoyed tying Dolly in this pretty hogtie- and the toe tie really does accentuate the hogtie and emphasise her sexy soles rather well, doesn't it? Have fun!

Businesswoman Sophia Smith vs. The Shoe Thief!

Added 07-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, ballgag, satin, blouse, shoes, skirt, brunette, pantyhose

High-powered business mogul Sophia is the latest gorgeous woman to fall victim to teh fiendish machinations of the sinister shoe thief! He breaks into her country cottage, ties her tight, and steals her sparkly, strappy high heels, leaving her in just her sparking silver and black pantyhose. What is his motivation? Is he a bitter employee from her shoe store empire? A pervert with a tights fetish? A rope fiend? A bondage villain? Stories are running rampant in the press - is no-one safe from the shoe's thief? Another in our series of custom pantyhose bondage photosets!

Penny's Weekend Away

Added 05-11-2018

Tags: rope bondage, barefoot, bedroom, blonde, hogtie, lingerie, ungagged, romance

"Well, Penny, how did your weekend away go?" asked Penny's boss

"Very kinkily, tied up on the bed for all manner of sexy things!" Penny thought. But delicately deflected the question. Oh god. Had her boss seen the rope marks still on her wrists and ankles?

Posh Girl In Prison

Added 04-11-2018

Tags: barefoot, satin, handcuffs, blouse, silk, leg irons, metal bondage, redhead

Stunning posh girl Irene is imprisoned still in her party satin clothes, locked in heavy steel manacles in a bare brick cell, with only a high window for light, out of all contact with the outside world!

Sari bound

Added 03-11-2018

Tags: barefoot, sari, satin, handcuffs, scarf bondage, blonde, humiliation, silk, leg irons, chains, cloth gag

In this super video (filmed as a custom), Ariel plays a super-model waiting in her hotel room for a fashion show. She's been promised a stunning diamond jewellery set, and she's anxiously awaiting delivery. Finally, there's a knock at the door! The jewels! She rushes to the mirror to unpack them and put them on, but then... there's another knock at the door. And this time it's no delivery boy- it's a jewel thief!

The overpowers Ariel and chains her to the bed, still clad in her sexy draped Sari. A handcuff on each wrist to the very corner of the bed pulls her tight- she can hardly move, and if she does move the metal will cut into her painfully! He chains her ankles tight together with rigid speedcuffs- there's not an inch of wriggle room! And to add insult to injury he gags her with the scarf from her own sari!

She is helpless and can do nothing but follow him around the room with her eyes as he pockets not just the jewels for the show, but her own jewellery as well! Then he notices her exclusive designed shoes- thousands of dollars worth! He steals her shoes and cannot resist tickling and tormenting her while he continues to strip the hotel room of valuables!

The Vigil

Added 02-11-2018

Tags: barefoot, brunette, leg irons, metal bondage, nude, nude in metal, outdoor, ungagged, fiddle

Locked in a heavy steel fiddle, Czech Beauty can do nothing but endure her bondage vigil. Barefoot and bound, nude in metal bondage in the full heat of summer!

#GameOfSlaves: Temptress Kate Takes Down Mistress Ariel!

Added 31-10-2018

Tags: action, rope bondage, girlgirl, barefoot, satin, blonde, humiliation, silk, chinese dress, corset, ungagged, velvet

This was one of the first sets we shot for GameOfSlaves- Temptress Kate sneaking in, zapping Mistress Ariel to paralyse her for long enough to tie her up, then sneaking out to steal Ariel's stable of slaves from under her pretty little nose! I'd always intended GameOfSlaves to unfold in a non-linear way, with bits of the storyline appearing out of sequence, and at this point in shooting it we didn't really know what the sequence was going to be or where the story would take us, or even exactly what it was going to be.

As the shoots developed, we concentrated on video more than stills, and this left a few stills sets like this one marooned, not quite fitting into the unfolding story or duplicating events that we showed in another way in a different episode. I always reckoned that the odd orphan set like this was inevitable- but it doesn't really matter, because Kate tying up Ariel good and tight, barefoot in her slinky velvet Chinese dress and corset is a really sexy set of images, if I do say so myself!

The main run of GameOfSlaves has come to an end, with us following Ariel's journey from bratty mistress through rebellious slave to re-born mistress, rule-breaker and finally dominated and submissive slave at the feet of Mistress Angel Price. But I don't think I'm done with the universe yet- I *do* like the styling and the basic idea of girls presenting themselves as contestants, self-filmed, trying to out-do each other in dominance or in submission. Once my brain his mulled over a few story arc possibilities and a few new main characters, it'll be back!

But for now enjoy the occasional stray stranded set outside the main chronology- and Ariel bound and barefoot and looking super-sexy!

Slinky Satin Style

Added 29-10-2018

Tags: barefoot, satin, handcuffs, blindfold, silk, brunette, leg irons, chinese dress, cloth gag, metal bondage, thumbcuffs

Gorgeous international bondage superstar Rachel Adams is back in bondage for us today! Shimmying into a slink satin cheongsam to strut her stuff, she's barefoot, blindfold and bound with black satin, locked into heavy metal restraints for your pleasure!

How To Make An Appearance

Added 28-10-2018

Tags: rope bondage, ballgag, barefoot, brunette, dress

Well, darlings, it's me again. let me tell you how to level up from "showing up at the party" to "making an APPEARANCE". You need to think about impact. It's all about making people notice you. Make them wonder who you are. Who is that fantastic girl? The brunette in the stunning dress? Oh my goh-od. That's so last year. No, you need to hit them hard with "who is that AWESOME hot superstar barefoot and bound in red rope? Why is she kneeling at his feet on the dance floor? Why is she wearing a huge fetish ball gag? Make damn sure you leave them with more questions than answers, leave early, and leave them all to talk. They'll NEV-ah forget you!

An Insult To The Sultan

Added 27-10-2018

Tags: barefoot, harem, blonde, stocks, outdoor, dungeon

Sexy harem girl Ariel Anderssen is dancing for the sultan in the gardens of the harem. The only problem is- she hasn't really be practicing enough! Although the sultan has a foot fetish and loves Ariel's high arches, he has a discerning eye, and there is no way he is going to allow her to insult him with lazy, sub-standard dancing. He orders the guards to haul her off to the dungeons! They lock her in the waiting stocks, while the sultan contemplates what her fate should be.

It's quite boring in the dungeon. Locked in the stocks, her bare soles on display, Ariel is left to that very worst of punishments- boredom and neglect! She starts to fantasise about the sultan coming down to the dungeons himself. What would happen if he saw her here, locked in the stocks, unable to move or resist? What terrible things would he do to her? And how would he amuse himself with her afterwards? Will it be a flogging? Or some other more inventive punishment?

Queen Scarlett's Downfall

Added 26-10-2018

Tags: barefoot, gown, handcuffs, historical, leg irons, chains, medieval, metal bondage, collar, nude, nude in metal, dress, dungeon, redhead

Her rule had been a byword for excess and sadistic decadence. Her orgies were the talk of the nine empires. Foes she captured could expect no mercy in the dungeons of the Chalice of Blood- save that they would never be killed or wasted. For the queen enjoyed her sexual slaves far too much to ever waste them. No, they could look forward to a long life- of humiliation and debauchery, tormented and teased to orgasm after orgasm for the voyeuristic queen's pleasure. Not the tortures of red-hot irons or the rack, but the pleasures of the flesh and the exquisite agony of artfully applied whips and chains and gags and stimulation and always, always the endless torments of forced orgasms.

It was inevitable that her kingdom would fall. Too obsessed with the pleasures of the flesh to devote enough time to statecraft or warcraft, her enemies watched and waited, seeking the chance to subvert or besiege the Crimson Guard. But in the end, it was her own people that betrayed her. Not just the peasantry, rising in revolt at the taxes which were mis-spent of the Queen's month-long orgiastic extravagances. No, the real betrayers were her own palace guards and senior advisors, despairing at last of their ruler's pleasure-addled brains taking seriously the threats amassing on their borders.

The coup was swift, and bloodless. Few bore the Queen any genuine ill-will, for by the standards of the age, her tortures were mild things, and her sexual indulgences a small price to pay for order in the kingdom. It was just that the libertine queen was totally unsuited to the business of governance. Wicked and evil she was, but not sufficiently wicked or evil to keep her throne. In the end, her final undoing came at the hands of a general she had stripped of her rank, but foolishly allowed to live as a slave in the dungeons. Orgies and fucking and whipping and bastinado and torment still left the general plenty of time to plot, and when the chance came, she seized it.

And condemned her former monarch to the same dungeons and the same punishments and indignities that she herself had been so recently subjected to. She knew, of course, that so wanton and depraved was the queen that she would live her life out in a haze of debauched sexual ardour- already, on the first night of her captivity, she was stripping herself naked and seducing each and every one of the guards. The only two things she would be denied were an audience beyond the walls of her prison cell, and an orgasm of her own.

For the guards were ordered to keep her in a state of high arousal, but should the former queen ever achieve sexual release, the life of the guards would be forfeit.

Tutorial: Daylight plus fill

Tutorial

Added 25-10-2018

Tags: blonde, outdoor

This is the fifth in the series of tutorial exercises we did with RE member-turned-photographer PaulMcRope which he has kindly allowed us to share with you on the site. We've established the key variables for shooting - focal length of lens, aperture, where the main source of light is placed relative to the subject, and the use of fill and ideally back lights to complement the main light source. In this exercise Paul wanted to see how to put those ideas into practice in the other common shooting scenario- outside in daylight. We picked our lens and aperture- started at 35mm, f/1.4 then played with the aperture a bit as we varied light sources.

By this stage it was mid-afternoon and while the sun had gone down at bit from peak "chest-nose hell" (see the last lesson on horrible top-lighting) it was still a bit harsh and unflattering, and furthermore was not coming in a co-operative direction. We had the option of a small patch of direct light on the patio, or dappled light and shade under the trees. Dappled light is a very common, and very tricky, outdoor shooting scenario. Here's how we handled it.

We had a choice of two swings in the garden, facing each other. On one swing the direct sunlight would be shining into Ariel's face- which would be fine, because it's dappled light she would be able to avoid being dazzled. Making your model look directly into the sun is daft because she'll be forced to squint, and it is not very flattering anyway. So we did what almost all photographers do outside at this time of day and decided to use the sun as a backlight. Would that be enough to get away with, or should we add some supplemental light?

In this scenario the key and fill is provided by the very soft was of light bouncing around in and through the foliage. It's very soft and not very directional, so you're at risk of flat lighting, but in daylight there's usually a bit of difference from side to side. As before, these are the JPEGs out of the camera, with fixed white balance (daylight) to give us a constant baseline for all the shots.

Take a look at the first series of shots, marked daylight only.

The first thing to notice is that serious green cast. That's because under all that greenery, the light genuinely is very green indeed. Our eyes adjust, the camera doesn't. We can recover that in post to some extent, but we'll be left with a different problem- the direct sunlight, as in the patches of light in the dappled light and shade, have come direct from the sun, not via a big green reflector/filter. So if we correct for the green on most of the shot, the direct sunlight will go purple. This may or may not be a problem- we might be able to find a happy medium in post, and the eye will probably allow and expect a bit of green tinge in photos under the trees.

Second issue- there's a big range in brightness between the patches of direct sunlight and the shade. Again, our eyes correct for that automatically. Modern digital cameras have marvellous dynamic range, and we might be able to find a happy medium by pulling the highlights down and lifting the shadows in post. But now we're looking at two potential problems to deal with in post, which is trusting an awful lot to our skillz in colour correction. If you want to see how that would go, look at res_25062018_DSC06914.jpg where the camera has underexposed for the main scene because it has exposed to keep the detail in the highlights as chance and the camera on auto would have it for this one shot. To do this correction in post we'd probably shoot everything like this to retain detail in the highlights and hope we don't get too much noise in the shadows when we pull them up.

Thirdly, with the lighting being even across the scene, there's not much to draw the eye in to Ariel and separate her from the background.

Finally, Ariel's eyes do have some catchlights because of the patches of light and dark on the foliage opposite her, but they are a bit hit and miss. And that's the general rule with shooting in dappled light- you will luck out and get some fantastic shots, but it'll be quite hit and miss, and there will likely be quite a lot of work in post to get the best from the images.

With a tied up model, we might want to do better in camera.

There are a few standard ways to go about this, and we tried the following:

1. Use a reflector
2. Use a ring-flash (or an on-camera flash with a diffuser)
3. Use a studio flash with a diffuser
4. Overpower the daylight entirely and start again

If you've got a friend around as crew to help you, the go-to solution is a whacking big reflector. Get a big bright board- white for a subtle effect, silver for a harsh effect, gold for a warming and romantic effect. Find a patch of sunlight "down shadow" of your subject and get the reflector into it, then angle it to bounce that light back onto her.

Have a look at the "gold reflector series. We used my favourite sort of reflector which is half gold, half frosted. It produces a softer, less intense and more subtle light that a true gold shiny board, brighter than a white reflector (which usually needs to be really close to have proper effect, which can be tricky for bondage photography as the photographer needs to move around). The half gold gives a definite warming effect like sunset, without messing up the colours too much. Best of all since the main effect is coming from direct reflected sunlight, the light from the reflector lacks the big green cast of the ambient light.

For this series I found a relatively small patch of sunlight through the trees, to camera right. You can see that the green cast remains in the shadow side, but the overall impression on Ariel's skin is much more flattering than the "zombie flesh" green of the daylight-only shots. This gives you a much easier starting point in post production. Furthermore, it's offset the difference in brightness between the patches of direct sunlight and shade on Ariel's skin, allowing for a much gentler and more glamorous appearance to the shots without looking unnatural.

Problem solved! And indeed if you can use it, the gold reflector is my favourite way to go. Why wouldn't you use it every time?

• You definitely need a friend to hold and point the reflector. It's quite a skilled job to catch and direct the sunlight this way, and propping the reflector up on a stand never really works, even if there's not a breath of wind.
• It relies on there being a suitable patch of sunlight in the right place, big enough to "catch" in the reflector. You may not have such a patch of light where you want to shoot, which leaves you making a series of compromises like moving the model or location, or just plain unable to do it.
• From the model's point of view, the reflector is sending direct sunlight right at her. It's like having a six foot by three foot board of blinding golden light right where you need to be looking. Some models can't do it at all. A skilled crewperson will catch the rhythm of the shoot and only direct the light at the last moment, and photographers can help by counting in each shot so the model can keep her eyes closed until the last moment. It's not such a big problem in dappled light like this, but where you are blasting a big fat beam of key light into a shadowed area as your main light source it can be physically painful for the model. Be aware.
• In wind these things are uncontrollable, leading to lots of missed shots and potentially going for an impromptu hang-gliding trip. Don't use on cliff edges in stiff breeze.
• Lastly, they are monolithic. You can sort-of control how much light you send in by how big the patch of sunlight you are in, or maybe trying to move to a not-quite-so-ideally situated angle. You can control to some extent how much light is on the model's face and feet by bending the reflector as you hold it. You can aim the light a bit off the model, missing her or feathering the light, but it's really hard to get any significant variation. Basically, the reflector is on her at full power, or off.

I tried to control the light for the last few shots in the sequence and as you can see the results are all over the place. Reflectors look great, but if you want to fine tune it, you're out of luck. And you can't use them on your own, at least not for bondage shoots.

Next up we have ringflash, or an on-camera flash with a diffuser. With the light coming from a hard source almost on the lens axis, you'll definitely want to avoid using undiffused on-camera flash (have a look back at the last lesson for why). Ringflash is nice because the only shadow it throws is a subtle halo behind and around the subject, which is pretty much invisible in situations like this. On-camera diffused flash is good because speedlights talk to the camera and can use ETTL metering, which can help get consistent exposure. For this experiment, we chose ringflash.

As you can see from the first few shots, you have a choice of how much fill to add from the flash, which is a definite plus compared with the monolithic on/off of a big reflector. So long as you keep your exposure around the same or a bit below the ambient light, the result can look entirely natural and almost unlit (Ringflash(low) example) whilst still getting rid of some of the green cast and ensuring good catchlights in the eyes.

Ringflash (high) on the other hand is quite an obvious effect, but it doesn't have the distracting shadows a diffused on-camera flash would have at high powers. It deals with the green colour cast, evens up the exposure on skin, provides catchlights, and also provides some nice separation between Ariel brightly lit in the foreground and the foliage behind, without looking too unnatural. A bit of fine tuning in post and this can look really glam, polished and high-end.

The Achilles' heel of ringflash is that most units do not talk to the camera's ETTL system in the same way that on-camera flash and connected speedlights do. This means you need to manually fiddle with the flash power setting as you move forwards and backwards, to avoid unintentionally over-exposing or under-exposing. It makes getting consistent exposure shot-to-shot very hard and can definitely set you up for a bit of work in post. On the other hand, it's self contained, especially the new high-power battery operated ones, so you can be out and about with a minimum of gear and still cope with a very wide range of lighting situations.

Next up is what I've called "fill in flash" on the captions. This is a battery-powered studio flash system with a powerpack, a meaty cable, a flash head, umbrella reflector, light stand and shoot-through umbrella. In theory you can use your favourite studio light-former for this, but I know from experience that it's very hard to secure a big softbox on a stand even with lots of sandbags, and you lose a lot of light that way too. I use shoot-through umbrellas because they do a cheap and cheerful job of softening the light source considerably whilst being light to carry, compact, and critically in wind are more likely to collapse or turn inside out than fly off and cause an expensive and fragile glass and electronics light head to turn into a shattering grenade. They also nicely cushion the blow should the light land on its nose. Best of all they are cheap and therefore easy to replace when they, inevitably, get knackered by outdoor use.

For this sequence I just parked a single flash head with umbrella to camera right, about where I was when holding the reflector. If you pick your lighting ratio carefully you can again avoid unnatural shadows, whilst providing catchlights, reducing contrast, making catchlights and generally focussing attention on your subject. If you like, you can do the whole three point lighting pattern outside with this sort of lighting set-up (and often we do).

Compared with the other solutions its main problems are cost, weight and bulkiness, especially when you need to sandbag the light stands for safety in a breeze. It also has a bit of a mechanical quality compared with reflector light- if anything, it is a little bit TOO predictable, shot to shot. Reflectors can give you happy accidents. Studio flash just give you the same light again and again and again.

Finally, I just whacked the studio flash to full power for the last few shots to show that in the right circumstances you can overpower sunlight. Compare with the original daylight shots- remember it is the same model in the same place. One is clearly a sunny afternoon. The other looks more like night-time. There are lots of creative possibilities there, which is the plus side of all that controllability.

That finished day one of our tutorial. On day two, we set Paul the challenge to shoot some actual bondage photosets to put it all into practice. Watch this space to see what he came up with!

Rockin' The Red Dress

Added 24-10-2018

Tags: rope bondage, ballgown, barefoot, blonde, leather bondage, spreader bar, dress, dungeon, ungagged

Leggy lovely Katie Anna is rockin' the red dress- and the red cuffs and red ropes! See her sex it up in the dungeon with spreader bar and great style as she shows off her modelling skills hitting pose after perfect pose! Don't you wish it was YOUR collar she chooses to allow around her neck?

An Arresting Sight

Added 22-10-2018

Tags: ballgag, barefoot, handcuffs, boots, jeans, brunette, leg irons, metal bondage, denim, outdoor

Beautiful brunette babe Sophia Smith is trespassing- and gets arrested! She's not exactly sure that the farmer is ALLOWED to perform a citizen's arrest, even if she is on his land. And she's pretty sure random country folk aren't legally allowed to clap you in old fashioned hand cuffs and leg irons to await to coming of the police- this isn't the middle ages! But when she tries to walk off, the farmer steals her boots and leaves her helpless and barefoot... then gags her for good measure! There's nothing she can do but await the coming of the police and hope that they are a bit more reasonable. And they aren't Mr. Farmer's cousin or something!

Hywel's note: the perils of location shooting! Booking location shoots in the UK is always a bit chancy. It's quite a busy country, so there's always a possibility of being disturbed by a dog-walker. That's one of the reasons we tend to go back to big locations if we've found a private one! But a much more pressing concern is usually the weather. We did this trip right at the end of April- a time of year when it can be pretty warm, pretty wet, pretty windy, pretty wintry or any mixture thereof. And in a place like North Wales, you can get all those things in a single day. So when we get a nice-ish spell in the weather, we tend to rush out into the fields and try to make the most of it. On this trip that mostly fell to Steve and a single frantic day shooting set after set as the weather changed from blue skies to cloudy and from just about warm enough to just about icicles. This was pretty much the last set we managed outdoors before the weather turned- as you can see, Sophia was a complete trooper despite goose-bumps!

We managed to shoot a few more things outside that week (Kate's rival and the set-up for the Medieval Epic revisited video) but we didn't really get the very best of the surroundings. Which is why we're planning on a return visit next year if we can.

Oh, in case your wondering, the reason we mostly do these location trips in Britain these days is thuddingly mundane: money. It's generally cheaper to get everyone together for a big trip if you're not also paying plane fares. That's why we've mostly moved over to the big trips being in the UK - this one was only about a hour or so's drive from our house. The more exotic and exciting foreign trips we're trying to make much more streamlined and low cost. It's not even so much about the total cost per se- the excitement and better weather in places like Spain and France actually make them as cost effective as the UK trips. It's that the risk is too high with one big super-expensive trip. We've never yet had a trip go complete sour on us, but I have to bear that risk in mind. What WOULD happen if we got kicked out of the location, or the weather was intolerable, or we all got hideous food poisoning on the first night? Would the business survive the loss of ten thousand pounds for no photos in return? UK locations are always lower-risk in this sense. We're always more likely to be able to get a friend to drive over and stand in either as model or photographer at the last minute and pull the trip out of the fire, or to all drive back to our house and use that as our fall-back shooting location. We'd lose a day or so, but not a whole week unless things went really, really bad.