Imago Studios is one of the most successful & unique bondage sites on the web – and has been so for nearly 25 years. The reason for that is simple – our models. The vast majority of our models are true amateurs and almost all have been exclusive to our site. They are the reason for our success & longevity. When we started back in the 1990s, finding good amateur models was one of our largest obstacles. Doing so required a lot of time, work and money. How did we do it? Read on …
Back in the 90s, finding models via the web wasn’t really possible. There were no social media sites, no Facebook, no Twitter – just AOL chat groups – LOL. We also had no desire to work with porn models like the California producers were doing, so going to an adult talent agency was never considered. We wanted real-life, ordinary people who were not professional models, i.e., true amateurs. But where to find them? Vegas is a large, relatively open minded city with a large university and a decent art community. So we went old school (which actually wasn’t ‘old’ given this was the 1990s!).
First, we hung fliers on the bulletin boards all over the UNLV campus. The fliers varied a bit – large, small, different colors & some included our business cards in a little box at the bottom, but the wording was always more or less the same (see example below). We also advertised directly in the school newspaper. We did this for years and many of our early models found us this way, including greats like Alexa Close, Mary Olson, Katie Ladd, Allaina Trent, Bianca Ford, Danielle Owens, Tehani Kai, Mia Chen, Giana Gray, Holly Everson & Britney Damon. Unfortunately, as the university grew and become more modern, all the bulletin boards were removed.
Click image – an old, original flier we found in our closet
Next, we advertised in the help wanted-jobs section of two local art & entertainment newspapers that were published once a week – The Las Vegas Weekly and The Mercury. The Las Vegas Weekly is still around, but in totally different format and The Mercury went defunct long ago, so we no longer use either. We varied the text quite often, but the ad that ran most often read:
“MODELS – FEMALE
Fetish photos. No nudity req’d.
Have fun & make money doing
something a bit different.
18+ Imago Studios xxx-xxx
Variation on this exact text included:
“MODELS Attractive female models needed for sensual fetish photography (no nudity). Prior modeling experience not required, professional attitude and outgoing personality more important. Must be 18. Imago Studios xxx-xxxx”
“FEMALE MODELS needed for fetish photography, no nudity. Prof. attitude & outgoing personality a must. 18+ only. $xx-xx/hr. Imago Studios xxx-xxxx”
“FEMALE MODELS. Fetish photos/videos. No Nudity or exp. req’d. Clean fun work for outgoing females looking to try something new. 18-30. Imago Studios xxx-xxxx”
The ads were purposely short because they were expensive. But we ran them every week for nearly a decade. The number of models we found through these ads is huge. Dina Davis, Renee Rose, Monique Zeta, Alexis Parker, Stefani Milor, Lilly Cummings, Kara Carlson, Molly Bronte, Marie LaVey, Janeen Gzesh, Jedi Brown, Lydia Sloan, Lainie Moon, Jasmine Martinez, Paulene Heinlein, Cyrelle St. James, Naleyja Diaz, Salem Williams, Augusta Jones, Katarina Wilski, Lana Loss and on & on. The full list would read like a who’s who of our early models.
So what happened next? We would get phone calls, actually lots of phone calls – and messages left on our old tape answering system! We would provide basic info about the work & pre-screen on the phone the best we could, but obviously we had no way of knowing what the caller looked like. This being pre cell phone days, they had no easy way of sending us photos. So if a caller was still interested & passed the initial screening (mostly questions about size, weight, tattoos, piercings, etc), we scheduled an in person interview. We probably did in person interviews with 60% to 70% of the people who called.
How did we conduct these interviews? Once or twice a week, we would schedule the prospective models to meet at different Starbucks across town – most often at one directly across from UNLV. We would schedule anywhere from 2 or 3 to 10 or more models at a time, spaced at 15 minute intervals. We spent hours each week sitting in a Starbucks! We would explain the nature of the work in full detail and show them photo examples of our work – which was nothing more then one of those 4×6 photo books – you know, like the ones your grandma had hundreds of!. Very early on, we didn’t have very many samples, so the book consisted of just 10 pics, mostly of Dianne and 1 or 2 of the models we had worked with back in NY. Not a very professional presentation – LOL!
Click image – our highly professional early photo book!
It was definitely an odd experience trying to do interviews for bondage models in a Starbucks! They were normally crowded and quite often, once a person at a nearby table overheard the word ‘bondage’ or’ model’, we would see them try to lean in closer and hear more about what was being said. We are sure we piqued a lot of people’s curiosity. But we did these interviews so often we didn’t care if people were noisy. We did these in-person interviews every week for more than 10 years. It was part of our life. Of course, we got a lot of no shows. On average, about half of the people who scheduled actually showed. Some days we spent a lot of time just sitting there. But there were occasions when everyone showed, asked lots of questions and we would fall behind and have girls sitting all around us waiting their turn.
If the girl seemed good and was still interested, we scheduled a shooting date immediately. Early on, this was often in just a few days. Interview a girl on Thursday, shoot with her on Saturday and release the video the next week! As time went on and we got more & more models, the scheduling time got longer, often several weeks down the road. Of the girls that showed & expressed interest, we probably hired only 20% to 30% of them. What can I say – we were quite picky and had a very particular look we were going for. At the time, that meant no visible tattoos, no implants (we wanted all natural), no unusual facial piercing (nose, lips, etc.), no wild hair colors, no goth type looks, etc. Essentially, we wanted Marcia Brady & Mary Ann (Gilligan’s Island) – not Baywatch babes.
One thing we were very bad at early on was rejecting a girl at the interview. If they were interested but we didn’t think they would work out (i.e., didn’t have the right look), we would say something like “We are doing a bunch of interviews tonight and we will be calling back those we want to work with in a few days.” This wasn’t at all professional, but neither of us had the heart to tell someone directly to their face that they weren’t attractive enough. After all, these were mostly college students, not professional models used to rejection. Eventually, we learned to do this, but it didn’t always go well. We had some who would sit there and argue with us.
Now, everything is different and in some ways far easier for producers, assuming you want to work with the same “pro” models as everyone else. Available and willing models are all over social media, promoting and marketing themselves to customers and looking for work. But if you are at all familiar with Imago Studios, you know we very, very rarely work with known fetish models. We have remained true to our original vision of Imago Studios being a true amateur bondage site. It is far from being the easiest tack we could take, but it is what we do and we do it very well 🙂
