This month marks a significant milestone in the history of Imago Studios. Twenty-five years ago this month, we did our first shoots with the full intention of starting our own company. We had previously submitted numerous personal photos of Dianne to Harmony as the wanDeRers and we had also done a handful of shoots with other amateur models using the name Imago Studios that we also contributed to Harmony. That was when we lived in New York and before we become fully disillusioned with the way Harmony treated us. In March 1998, we moved to Las Vegas and immediately set about finding models (see blog entry How We Found Our Models in the Early Years). On Saturday, May 23, 1998, we did our first shoot with Alexa Close and the following weekend (May 30 & 31, 1998), we shot with Mia Chen on Saturday and Mary Olson & Katie Ladd on Sunday. These first shoots would result in our first three videos: IS001 “The Reluctant Bondage Model” starring Alexa Close, IS002 “The Tied and Tormented House Cleaners” starring Mary Olson & Katie Ladd and IS003 “Bound to Bitch” starring Mia Chen.

The actual opening of the Imago Studios website was still a few months off and we had already invested a significant portion of our meager savings to shoot these videos. With no outlet of our own to sell them, we were running low on cash. Although our goal was to start our own website, we though it would be at least prudent to see what another company would offer for one of them, either on a commission basis or as an outright purchase. We didn’t trust Harmony, so we reached out to another bondage producer who already had an established website and also happened to be located in Vegas & sent them a copy of the video that would become IS003. To our absolute amazement, they offered us $2000 for the rights to that one video. This would have been a significant profit given what it cost to produce and the influx of cash would have certainly helped. However, we didn’t like the way the company handled the negotiation and since we had full confidence in our vision for our own website, we turned the offer down. That may have been the best decision we made, at least early on. To this day, IS003 is still our best selling video. Sales of that video in the early years helped carry Imago Studios through the lean times. We made enough money off that one video that we could have put a kid through college, if we had had kids! OK, maybe just community college ;-), but the sales were high enough that we knew this was going to be a real business and we have always treated it as such.

Surprisingly, neither of us remember very much about these 3 shoots. We are certain that at the time, we never imagined doing this for the next 25 years while making a very good living at it! More importantly, we never dreamed we would meet so many great people and make so many good friends along the way, which is all because of another great decision we made early on. Namely, to only work with amateur models and only associate with people with whom we felt a genuine camaraderie – thus avoiding the drama & stigma associated with the mainstream porn & fetish industry. That was definitely not for us.

It is impossible for us to put into words what the last 25 years have been like. Living a dream doesn’t really capture it all. But we are immensely thankful for all our loyal fans and for our incredible models. We feel humbled by the trust and support that has sustained us over the years.

Alexa Close in IS001

Mary & Katie in IS002

Mia Chen in IS003