More S&M Below
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NYROCK: |
You work for several magazines... | ||
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MISA: |
Yeah, The Vault magazine, Black & Blue, which is the bi-coastal one, Pandora’s Box magazine, which is specific to Pandora's Box the dungeon, and the Tranny Hooker magazine, Adam as Eve, which is really fun. You know the one I'm talking about... | ||
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NYROCK: |
That's the she-male one. | ||
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MISA: |
Yeah. | ||
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NYROCK: |
I'm getting the terms down.... | ||
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MISA: |
(laughs) | ||
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NYROCK: |
These are some great shots [looking at pictures taken in the medical room of Pandora's Box]. | ||
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MISA: |
Yeah, they've got tremendous facilities. This is the most extensive medical room I've ever seen. They've spent a lot of time and effort to get it all right. I've taken a lot of really great pictures in this room. Some of these girls have got issues showing their faces. I just thought I'd mention that. This girl makes quite a good living being a model. | ||
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NYROCK: |
How did you get involved in this particular genre: S&M and other erotic photography? | ||
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MISA: |
I quickly found out that being a dom was not necessarily for me, but I enjoyed the world. Also, by the way, I kind of felt that I would come and learn about this, but my ulterior motive was to shoot. | ||
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NYROCK: |
What was it about being a dominatrix that you didn't like? | ||
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MISA: |
The waiting around for hours for no reason. I had a lot of other things to be doing. I really felt that there was a certain talent that takes off from being an actress. That is, I think that a truly successful dom isn't necessarily acting in the end. OK, not everybody is really interested in being in a teacher/student scenario. But a dom will indicate her specialties if she is good and she will attract a certain kind of clientele that isn't going to ask her to do something she doesn't like. I have one friend who gets a definite gleam in her eye and a spring in her step whenever the ropes come out. She puts people into bondage. That's what her emphasis is. What's great about knowing all these people and having done this, is that the girls understand that I understand the difficulties inherent in photographing this kind of thing. I have the patience for it. For example, if we are going to be doing a Japanese rope-bondage suspension scene, then I'm going to be there for awhile. They are not wasting my time. That's just the way it is. I am familiar with the subject. Also, I get to meet cool people who truly take joy in what they do and I derive a lot of energy off of that. Some of them, like Tara [shows a picture of her], have strong personalities who like to direct everything. | ||
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NYROCK: |
She wants to hold the reins. | ||
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MISA: |
Yeah, and it's amazing. Look at the great things that happen when she does. People freak out when they see this. Then there is this kind of thing [showing a shot of Mistress Leda] where we weren't really sure what we were doing but we had a slave who could help me to set up my light and we had the whole city. We were up all night just going around shooting. I had her topless on top of that bull down on Wall Street at one in the morning. Traffic going by. Colors really vibrant. It was cool. | ||
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NYROCK: |
[Admiring the photograph...] Completely striking. Everything a photograph should be. Your work is wonderful. How has business been? | ||
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MISA: |
People come back every four or five months or so. Now everybody is wanting to build up their websites. So they need lots of content. So I'm doing a lot of work for that.
I created this huge scandal in Central Park too. About three years ago, we tied a dom's slave to a tree and unfortunately they were both wearing vinyl bikinis, which was great, but we drew a crowd. There were little kids coming up to her saying, "Hey, are you a super hero?" and she said, "Oh, yes, I am." Anyway, the cops came. There was this big, lesbian bulldog cop. They wrote up a ticket for illegal display, which I thought was pretty funny. So we said we were sorry and went over to the park on the Upper West Side and shot over there. [A friend] ran into the cop at a lesbian bar a few nights later and [the cop] said she never filed the ticket. And it was true! I called up to check when I had to go in for the summons and they said, "What ticket?" It was very cool. I guess she was into chicks in vinyl bikinis. | ||
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NYROCK: |
Have you done any shooting outside of the S&M realm? | ||
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MISA: |
I have an agent that gets me jobs. I went down and shot at NASA recently. There's a French astronaut that was up. He is the one that put the X-ray telescope into space. So I got to go down and spend about five days at NASA and at a pastry-making cooking school. So it was all French, French, French. I just photographed David Copperfield about three weeks ago and Art Garfunkel. Art was quite nervous but we ended up getting along well because I was telling him jokes. He was a sweet man. | ||
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NYROCK: |
Funny, I would expect Art to be used to being in front of a lens after all these years. | ||
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MISA: |
Photography brings out weird memories and reactions in people. I find that I need to be a psychologist occasionally. You know, got to make them feel comfortable. | ||
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NYROCK: |
What other projects are you involved in? | ||
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MISA: |
I met a guy who is a real bondage enthusiast. He has been serving as a catalyst to do extra work that has nothing to do with the magazines. It's not commercial, salable work, that would bring a dominatrix clients. It's more about the art of fetish. | ||
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NYROCK: |
Where would the images go once they are shot? | ||
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MISA: |
A book, a gallery. I don't believe that I can progress as an artist without following that route, without doing the book and everything else. September 1999 More S&M on NY Rock:
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