The Pornstars' Rack: Happy Anniversary!

Wake me up when September ends. Actually, a little earlier, I have a party to go to. The one for the anniversary of...

SL Connoisseur



One year of SL Connoisseur! It's great to see publications make it that far, because in Second life, a year is A FRIGGING LIFETIME! And as the founder, owner, publisher of the mag Edvard Taurion says in his intro, "It was a long and bumpy road, but also full of so much fun and surprises. I am glad we all made it". 
Speaking of someone who looks like they have been through a long and bumpy road...One year of Connoisseur means also a year of memorable centerfold shoot by the wonderful Cream Release.

And a year of interviews and more!

You know, in one year of coverage of this magazine, never once (well, except the time when I had the honor to be on the cover myself) I had the chance to know in advance who the pin-up for the coming issue was going to be.
This time I thought I had a bit of juicy gossip when chatting with Cream she told me that the cover girl of this month was "a pain in the butt to work with". Well...duhhhh. You fooled me, Cream!
I should have known better. The staff of this magazine, beginning with the committment they take when they accept to have their work exclusive to SL Connoisseur, have shown absolute diligence, dedication to their work and professionalism. Credit to Ed for shaping his magazine this way.

...Also a year of  erotic stories. Laura brings her debaucherous sensuality and  the punchline of this issue is hers again.

But first and foremost credit to the staff members, who again did beautifully this month, for their thickest, most polished and well thought out issue to day. As it always should, the next issue being better than the previous! This issue brings us more of the active contribution from Onisa Lundquist, who does the photography for Edvard's interview, plus interviews and shoots with other 2 designers (including one of my favourite jewelry stores, damn!!), not to mention the 'Pet of the Month' spread, this month with a beauty out of this world, Monique LeFry!

Sideboob, 3/4 arse, high heels, and Pluto in Pisces. Yes, I think I stargazed enough today.

The latest addition to the team this issue is Court Faith, a name you read A LOT in the porn world lately. Nobody is as active as she is now with her photography. In this issue she interviews and photographs a content creator very familiar to our readers as well as a group member and already covergirl in a past issue of Busted, Akira Kira.

Fashion designers, sim owners and obviously furniture creators on this issue. 13 issues of original content!

And SL Connoisseur doubles on the erotic stories this time AND on the Cream, because together with Laura Richards' contribution with a story perfect for this issue that leads to Halloween, we also are treated with erotica featuring Cream herself and one of the cutest models on the scene, the lovely Lara Dieterle.

Cream and Lara drawing a crowd!

Speaking of the Halloween mood and binary occurences, Kayla Bombastic for this second appearance on the mag shows us as well a great pair. No, you pervs, I mean the location reports SL Connoisseur has brought us from day one and that the Bombastic one has debuted covering in the previous issue. The dramatization of her visit to Ironwood Hills is a great read even for those who already know the sim by heart. Which you won't anyway, since it's an ever-changing one , that Kayla's narration will compel you to visit again, trace her steps, or make it your own experience!

Kayla's photography and writing are definitely inviting. This month, Ironwood Hills and  Byrd Island

Finally, a mention to Kristina Deschanel's work putting all the pieces together as the Technical Editor of the mag. Over 200 pages not easy to compile, and with a presentation that gets slicker - really pleasant splash pages presenting most articles this month, I really liked it. Plus, she happens to do the party photos that open the issue, which is a bonus since she got some reaaaaally nice action shots...

Mooned by Moonie, at the previous Connoisseur Party!

What's to add to close this post? Obviously a shoutout to this upcoming party, today Thursday 29th, at 11 AM SLT!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/BDSM/231/67/24

Come to the party, have your photo taken, meet and greet Ed, the staff, perhaps get a chance to be in an upcoming issue...but hey, first and foremost get this new issue, as it's pretty good! In fact, don't wait for the party and do your homework: get Connoisseur from the marketplace store!

To schedule a post on the Pornstars blog, simply contacting me, Katina Cazalet, inworld, is enough! Let me know when you are avalaible!

This week...month...something....in challenges!

We love to give coverage to every and any initiative aimed at the crowd of passionate photographers, filmakers, artists who make up so much of our active community. I admit my limits and tell you that I am a rather poor 'hunter' of opportunities not being on Flickr a lot, so I will suggest to please, share your findings on the in-world pornstars group or just IM me, Katina Cazalet, in world, especially if you are unsure about the appropriateness of the entry.

I appreciate the work done by our own Jadelyn McAuley relaying us the information about the "Fun in the Sun" photo hunt. From the blog post about it by one of the sponsors (the other being our favourite US-time party venue Hard Alley Social Club )

What is the idea behind a photo hunt and how does it work? The idea is you pick a sim, and all contest entry photos must be taken on whatever Sim was chosen. For our very first photo hunt we will be using Vice Beach. You are welcome to use the entire sim is not just limited to the beach area.

Rules in short? Take a photo at the Stroker Toyz sim, submit it at this flickr group here before the 18th of the month, the photo must have NO EDIT work done except cropping, that's the biggest challenge! This is a wonderful opportunity for every aspiring photographer and for the more established ones as well, with a solid 10'000 L$ grand prize, and other equally impressive gifts. Be creative!

Kayla puts Johnny to work for the winning photo of the last contest in 'Motivation'! 

In the nawties department as well, I am also giving a shoutout for Bibble Sugartooth's group, 'Bibi's Photo Contest'. Join the flick group, and the inworld group as well, to hear more about it all including the full list of winners. The current contest that just closed was 'Spank that Booty': as you can see Kayla Bombastic really nailed it, and I don't just mean JohnnyWhadd's booty.Prepare for the 15th of this month and the new theme "Erotic Bondage"

Marika Djannovic's winning entry for the P.A.S.S. contest, sponsored by Swallow. Features herself and an indentured servant.

And in closing for this post, another group that offers to its members a regular challenge is Brea Brianna's P.A.S.S. group. With the sponsorship of a famous brand of clothing/jewelry/skins/awesomesauce, Brea offers to the group members the chance to take part to a photo competition that nets pretty nifty prizes to the winners plus the outfit you see in these pictures, that was at the time an exclusive Fetish Fair item. Here you see the photos, starting with the 6 winners in order, and then the runner ups in alphabetical listing

by Lara Sands-Dieterle

by Athena

by BeeQueen Smythe

by, hello again, Kayla Bombastic

by Monique LeFry

by Biarzenne Necro

by Callista Aries

by Carola Conover

by Dakota Faith

by Missy Lovesu

These 3 contests blogged all offer a tangible monetary reward, but there are so many groups on flickr about 'challenges' of creativity. What's your favourite one? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below, or in my nawty box inworld.

"She said she wanted to feel my meat and who am I to say no to that." by Talisker, because...title.

“The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.”
― Criss Jami

Blah blah, Sexiest Blog, blah blah, write post if you like, blah blah, IM me and suggest me stuff, k tnx bai!

Making out of with ...The Notorious B.E.N.

If you want to relax on a weekend, I have something for you ! It involves weed and sex, and...


Self portrait II by B.E.N.

I mean of course an interview with one of the most creative guys in the porn biz! He's a mariachi, a janitor, a delivery boy, a makeup-artist, an acrobat, the next James Bond, although his trademark sideburns would make him a prime suspect for an Elvis biopic or being the next Wolverine once Hugh Jackman calls it quits.

Although he is not afraid to trade them off to become a shady sheik and all sorts of other characters...including the police dude prominently featured in this post.
A versatile model as well as photographer with an intense stare that is sure to burn a hole into your soul, here's my interview with The Notorious B.E.N. aka Benjamin BigDipper, inspired by his 'Busted' photoset with Lara Sands-Dieterle!



- When did you get the idea of doing this particular photoshoot? Did you have already Lara as model in mind for it?

" Well, the basic ideas for my shoots are probably much less elaborate than some people might think. It all starts with a very basic idea, and the rest is pretty much out of my hands, the creative process takes over.

For this shoot, I was playing around with terrain sculpties to create a desert set, and somehow it turned into desert highway. And after a bit more brainstorming by myself I came up with the almost stereotypical "Cop pulls over sexy lady who did something naughty" idea.
I had Lara as a model in mind already, because she was super eager to do another shoot, after her first one."


From the first set with Lara, 'Full Service'

- I'd like to know the various phases of the photoshoot. What did you do to make the idea come true?

" The first phase of this shoot, and pretty much any other more elaborate shoot, is planning the set - that means looking through my inventory for props I can use, if I can't find anything I have to check on the marketplace for hopefully free or cheap props, or ask friends to rez props for me.

I was playing around with my terrain sculpties to create a desert set, for a future shoot, so this wasn't really a planning phase. Somehow during that playing phase it turned into a desert highway set, I started to build a road between dunes of sculpties.
Slowly all the props came together, from the roadsigns, the cactus, to the borrowed cars.

After the set was complete, with the road, cars, signs, etc, I played around with windlight to find a decent desert-looking sunset.
Then I was checking out angles, to see if the illusion of the desert road was believable enough for pictures.



The shoot itself took place once I could pick a time and meet up with Lara.
She shows me her outfit for the shoot, I tell her to make changes, if necessary, and then the main shoot begins.
It's pretty much the same process from then on, posing the model and myself with anypose, and moving all the needed props in position. For the lighting I usually don't change the windlight settings, but have 1 projector prim out with a little bit of ambient light.



Once I have shots for all the poses we did, which isn't always planned either, I upload those to flickr and give them just a slight edit.
It's mostly just cropping, a little bit of contrast and brightness, and tinkering with the saturation.
I believe that one should try to get the most out of unedited SL photos, and only do minimal photoshop work. "



- So how much of the shoot you would say is planned, in the end? Are you a "one click one pic" type of person, or you take lots of snapshots from sligthly different angles before you choose the best ones?

" As I've mentioned earlier, I don't really plan much about my shoots.
I have a very rough basic idea, and then the creative process kind of takes over.
For example, the shot with Lara and I sitting on the car and smoking a joint after sex was a totally spontaneous idea that came up during mid-shoot chat.



For some shoots I might have an idea for one or two specific shots, but sometimes I just discard these ideas because I find something better on the way. And yeah, I'm the shutterbug type of person, I take like 50 shots but throw away 35 of those again.
I think the creative process is the keyword here, one shouldn't try to force ideas to make them work, or be too rigid about their planned shots, a lot of things are "Happy Accidents", as Bob Ross would say. ;) "



- For those not familiar with your work yet, would you like to name off the top of your head at least 3 photosets OR single pictures that are your favourites?

It's hard for me to pick favorites here, people have such different tastes, and I do so much different themes, from artsy popculture to just blatant porn, or the occasional BDSM/fetish shoot.
The "Shark Cage Shaggin' " shoot is definitely worth mentioning though, because it was such an unusual location.
I can only recommend to check out my albums list, because the more extensive shoots like Busted!, Hot Coffee, or Full Service all tell a little story.


A snippet from 'Hot Coffee' featuring Racheal Rexen

- Is there any shoot you would love to do but haven't quite gotten around doing yet, or find hard finding the right setup for ? What is the next project from The Notorious B.E.N. ?

" I guess there are a lot of ideas that are flying around in my head, but sometimes other projects sort of butt in, and the idea comes back on the backburner for then.  Most projects I haven't started yet have the problem of lack of props.
Despite the couple of years we've had mesh now, some items simply do not exist in SL, the only ones that exist look bad and/or are too expensive for a single shoot. Once I find a valid alternative to those props I usually start to brainstorm ideas by just playing around with the set.

The next project is still somewhat of a secret, but the first installment of it should be out by the time I'm writing this. "


I told you that Ben will be the next Wolverine: he's already giving Stan Lee cameos...

And by the time I wrote the post, the whole set was posted, actually! Ben's Underground Slave Auction set, in six parts ( one, two, three, four, five, six ), involving models such as PJ Thornton, Tanja Doll, Carola Conover, Pwincess Buttacwup.
A big congrats to Ben and everyone involved, as the SL Porn scene certainly needs people with his kind of attitude and ingenuity.


Ben on the wrong side of the gun, with regular model and muse of his Margarita Blanco

Please do check out his sets, and I hope you will let him have some feedback as well. Elaborate photosets always get somewhat overlooked in the big 'game' of faves exchange going on in Flickr, and it's a shame, as a lot of work goes into productions like this.

And please let me know if you'd like your work to be covered on the blog!

Making out of with...Igor Romanov

Making your porn debut is not desperately difficult. If this is not the first time you read the the blog, you probably peeked already at the appropriate page listed above. What is more difficult of course is to have that initial spark grow, do your own projects, find your own way and dimension, simply sometimes find what you like to do. Amongst the people who recently joined the group and is making an impact as an artist, we took an interest recently for Igor Romanov ('jeffcosgrove' in world)

 



Ali Lancrae used her full range of interviewing skills on him on one of her mirable posts on Porn Star Confidential, providing quite the eyecandy (the pic below is just a sample)! This one will be more wordy, but the pictures from Igor himself and his pleasant and insightful comments will make it not completely boring!



- How did you learn about The Sexiest Pornstars group?

" Partee told me. She has been so helpful to me in helping me learn how to network and where. I had already posted some to Flickr and she was always interacting on my page, although quite busy herself, so I reached out to say thanks. We've been friends ever since."




Igor photographing Partee, from the set 'Beach Partee Bingo'

- Your flickr begins with your first unedited shots, then goes on as you begin playing with filters, etc. What catches your interest the most about SL photography?

" Well I left those early shots up, because the do tell the story about how it evolved. It began simply to show people something about me on my profile if they did not meet me in world. Then I got addicted to snapping pics..."

- You do more than 'just' snapping pics, tho. Even if you do get great 'instant' captures. i think you have a real talent for the party photos. Maybe it's not very stimulating to hear for a photographer who puts a lot of effort in scenarios and such but i think you had excellent results those times you did it.

" The lighting at Emily's club really inspired me, so that helps and I probably walked in with the right default windlight, and just looked around."


A great capture of Stacy at a Pornstars party

- But from your beginnings, your flickr documents a growth as photographer in many aspects. It's always refreshing to me and interesting for many readers and 'newcomers' to hear about the learning process. I know you have examples of the tools you acquire that you can share.

" Well, I am neither a photographer in RL or a graphic designer by trade. I know little about using tools such as Photoshop prior to SL photography. I had to learn as I went.
I had to learn how to patch up necklines and arms that got twisted up in a pose, etc.
For the bartender story, then was the scene where I was doing body shots off of Rachel's tunny, as she lay naked on the counter. That was actually an animation that came with the bar. I will admit that I'm not a tequila drinker, and being busy capturing the shot, realized later that a shot glass should've been in my hand, but never made it there that night. So I had to learn how to do a layer mask in order to include a graphic of a genuine shot of tequila into my hand. "

'Before and after' in one of the shots (no pun intended) of 'The naked bartender', with Rachel and Ali Avro-Fox

- And the technical aspect is just one part of the photographer's work. In fact....You mentioned to me that you get a lot a certain question...and that question is, more or less, "How much of what I am seeing is staged or is it "in the heat of the moment." . Well well, what about that?

"Haha. That is always an interesting and complicated question to answer. Methods of capture vary from shot to shot, shoot to shoot. The workflow of one shoot may go smoother in one instance over another. But I can say this: I don't post "personal memories" of that sort. In other words, I'm a private person who doesn't "kiss and tell." Anyone in the shot knows at the time they are being captured. I guess the real question is (and the reason I'm proud to be asked about this) is, "Does it look and make you feel like you caught us in the heat of the moment?" If so, then I succeeded.

 


A couple of memorable shots from Igor's latest, The Ultimate Workout, with Lacey Nora

- I love your stories that go with the photoshoots. When do they take shape? You have already an idea of where the story will go and how it will end before you shoot the pics, or does it come later? do you write every 'chapter' as you release the pics, or...? Feel free to take one shoot as example, or more. I realize it's not like that -every- time .

" Yes, it varies. Many times it the past, I would know how I wanted the shoot to progress from start to finish and the story took shape after I reviewed the shots. Sometimes I just have way more hot pics that I can use and not drag out the set so far that the casual viewer gets bored. In those cases I have to whittle it down to 6-8. This immediate release with Lacey Nora is going to be one such project.
The pictures are my babies and I love them all. Usually during review is when the characters in the play start taking shape. As with the Visiting Chanel shoot, I ended up passing off the great outtakes for her to post on her page. "





- There's also one series that gets my attention, the 'Cuddle Where you Are' series. What's the idea behind it?

"Well, (blush) I'm a romantic at heart. A sensualist. I'm a touch guy. It's very different from the raw tension of much of my recent work. It's sweet and I like that. Lately when I've run into friends, I ask them to do a quick cuddle pose. I hope to add more to this ongoing gallery. It's all about tender affectionate moments, no matter where you might be. Much like the sexual encounters in the stories, I'm challenging myself with unusual locations. We've all seen the couple behind closed door in bed scene and they are lovely. I've just wanted to do something a bit different."




Above, Igor with Lacey and Katita80.

- Not that I want to give all aspiring models the straight way to your heart but....what do you find most stimulating in a model, if anything in particular, and what do you think are the most important qualities for someone who wants to work with you? 

 " Hmmmm.....what does a young model need to know?
Last week I had an unplanned shoot and immediately went searching my friends list. It was late in the afternoon here and one of the pornstar parties was just getting underway. I was a bit frustrated at how many models, who have far less of a following than even I, turned down work, in order to attend a party that was designed to help them----drum up work.




From two really well put together sets with well laid out stories: 'Naughty Neighbors' and 'Stolen Clothes'

I am not a vindictive person, but if you are serious about working with certain people, you need to be serious about communicating. That means returning messages if you're away when messaged. Personal relationship is important to me with the people I want to work with. If you fail to communicate, eventually I will stop trying and pass you over. On the opposite end, I have projects that include people who were really interested in me as a friend (or maybe just interested in me as a man) and what I do.

 


Lara Sands-Dieterle and Bette Paige each enjoyed hot erotic photoshoots too!

They went out of their way to be available, jumped at the opportunity given, and maybe even introduced me to a venue or theme for us to shoot. Those kinds of people tend to bypass any line there might be and move right to the front.
We mentioned the shoot with Partee before. I hope she doesn't mind me mentioning this, but when discussing where and what she might like to shoot, she mentioned how moved she was by a single oral shower picture I had posted. So I then went hunting for the right venue to make it more personal.
Kind of fun to make fantasies come true."



- Is there something in the SL adult arts that you'd like to achieve and hope to in the next , or even distant future? Can be anything from ...... well, i don't want to lead you on! 

 " I think whether with an adult shot or something quite benign, as an "artist" (I don't take that so seriously with myself) I love realism. I'm really trying (and I'm not there like I'd like to be) to cause people to forget for one brief moment that they are looking at avatars and not a real photo. In that regard especially Laura Richards has been my photography idol."

 


The good thing with the porn world: you get to meet your idols face to face!

Thank you SO much to Igor for his patience answering my questions, and I hope to see plenty more of his efforts as photographer, wordsmith and man-candy in the months to come, as an active part of the community, enjoying all the various 'meme' that we all know and like! Showcasing gorgeous models like Racheal Rexen and Jesse Jane below, all the others seen in this post, and plenty more!





And if you have ideas about this blog and something to offer, please let me hear it! I love to feature you!