Spanking as Art by Alva Bernadine

Fifty Shades of Pain by Alva Bernadine

Four Hundred and One Blows, by Alva Bernadine  

Spanking as Art – Slow motion flagellation

Apparently we are now living in the age of Fifty Shades of Grey, where previously vanilla women, are now demanding to be tied to the bed and whipped. The plot, is about an unprepossessing woman who is ravished by an impossibly handsome billionaire who falls in love with her. All she has to do is to endure a regular thrashing by a man who is a love god in the bedroom.

Never one to go for the obvious, I began to wonder what happens at the moment of impact. These pictures, a taxonomy of blows, were taken with a sound activated switch and captures that precise instant.

Harold Edgerton was the inventor of high speed flash, which he used to capture things that were too fast for human vision, such as his famous bullet passing through an apple or a crown of milk caused my a single droplet. I had become fascinated by his work and acquired a sound activated switch and began experimenting, taking portraits of a friend with bursting balloons and exploding fruit and bottles, shot with an air rifle.

While in the midst of this, a friend phoned me and asked what I was up to these days. I told her and she commented on once seeing a video of a woman being flagellated in slow motion.



In that instant the project, Four Hundred and One Blows, was born. I had first met her when she bought a print of The Most Scurrilous Washing Line in Christendom, an image of a nude woman standing in a kitchen with the family laundry hung out on washing lines attached to her pierced nipples. She hung it in her own kitchen. My friend had two degrees and three children and had a penchant for being whipped.

She came round with her partner and a sports bag full of different thrashing implements. In a darkened room the camera shutter is opened and when there is a noise the flash is activated. My switch had two dials, one to control its sound sensitivity and the other was a delay you tuned to achieve the moment of maximum impact. We went through the bag of canes, riding crops, tawses and cat-o-nine-tails and then I threw in my kitchen spatula and table tennis bat for good measure. When I showed the first photographs, some people, much to my annoyance, thought I was doing it with a sheet of glass or something.

I then decided to photograph different shaped arses and would ask women of my acquaintance and those I met at parties to aid me in my scientific endeavour. Surprisingly 50% said yes. It is a wonder I did not get slapped in the face – but that would have made an interesting sound activated picture as well.

[Previously on... Alva Bernadine]

Forniphilia by Alva Bernadine

Forniphilia (Human Furniture), a new joint by Alva Bernadine.
quote [Forniphilia is a form of BDSM where a person is used as household furniture. The best example is, of course, Allen Jones’s 1970 sculptures of a table, chair and hatstand, which surprisingly still causes controversy even today. People were being used as furniture long before this though, and the oldest depiction I have seen so far is a 1878 carved wooden chair of two nude females on their hands and knees holding up a seat. Since taking my first fetish photograph over twenty-five years ago, I have met many submissive women who would call themselves feminists. Sex has no ideology, so it is useless to tell someone it is not politically correct to be tied up and beaten or to run off with someone else’s partner. If it gives them satisfaction they will do it. People will often extrapolate from their own position. If they cannot imagine doing something themselves, even as a last resort, they imagine someone else engaging in it must be doing so under some form of duress, which is often not the case... more].
[Previously on... Alva Bernadine @ Unscathed Corpse]

Succubus by Alva Bernadine

Succubus is the new ongoing serie by Alva Bernadine.

quote [Here are half of the new pictures from my ongoing Succubus series, which is my interpretation of the myth and along with the series is undoubtedly my most powerful video so far.

A succubus is a female demon that has sex with men in their sleep. The male version is an incubus. They arise from medieval christian demonology and the first mention of a succubus is in the 1300s. They have sexual intercourse with their victims in order to possess their bodies. Lilith, the supposed first wife of Adam was said to be the first succubus.

I started this series long before Photoshop. I had a technique I had not used for a few years that involved using card infront of the lens and shooting one half then the other on the same frame of 35mm film. I used it to create disembodied hands in my early work. Trying to think of a way to ressurect the technique but on a new subject, it occurred to me to try it with nudes. For my first attempt I had a girl standing in my corridor and shot her top half, had her turn round then shot the bottom half. Luckily the join was so exact that the final print needed no retouching. Later on with the advent of Photoshop, I started using it because people thought my succubi were photoshopped in any case. It was suggested to me that my succubi were more like male fantasies and over time they became more and more explicit, some straddling the line between art and pornography].

[Previously on... Alva Bernadine @ Unscathed Corpse]

Alva Bernadine - Inappropriate Images 2

Alva Bernadine, a "must" here at Unscathed Corpse, with his second part in his Inappropriate Images series (..at the bottom for pictures...).
quote [This is the second instalment in my project. The first can be seen here. I thought of what the streets might look like if inappropriate content could be seen in an urban enviroment and at the same time treat it as an ad campaign. My first trip to take background images was to the West End of London. I had not been there for some years and discovered that some buildings had huge posters on their sides and others being renovated had posters and hoardings sometimes up to the height of two floors. I visited several parts of London and photographed billboards and posters and composited erotic and surreal pornographic images into them. After that it occurred to me to concentrate on London museums and art galleries photographing and videoing their frontages and interiors, such as the Tate Modern, Hayward, Whitechapel and private commercial galleries such as Saatchi, Gagosian, Lisson etc.].
[Previously: Born With Three Mouths - Alva Bernadine: Pornography as Art - Alva Bernadine: Sex and Violence Book - Bernadinism... a One (Blog) Subculture - Alva Bernadine Photography]

Born With Three Mouths

Screaming woman has mouths for eyes. Hear her banshee scream. Three mouths, the ultimate seduction.Test for film project by the photographer Alva Bernadine.
[Previously: Alva Bernadine: Pornography as Art - Alva Bernadine: Sex and Violence Book - Bernadinism... a One (Blog) Subculture - Alva Bernadine Photography]

Alva Bernadine: Pornography as Art

quote [While Christmas was a time for peace on earth and goodwill to all men, I said "Bah, humbug" and spent it slaving over a hot computer doing the first 40 snaps of my new project, Pornography as Art. I have at times wondered what it would be like to see inappropriate pictures in the street so I decided to simulate it with some of my own inappropriate pictures. Here are the first 10. The uncensored ones will go on my secret blog for the time being].
[Previously: Bernadinism... a One (Blog) Subculture - Alva Bernadine: Sex and Violence Book - Alva Bernadine Photography]

Bernadinism... a One (Blog) Subculture

New works from Alva Bernadine at Bernadinsme.
quote [...but before the yogurt I filmed her reverse strip, where she started off naked then pulled a nightie out of her snatch and put it on. Then in my corridor, she stuck giant sparklers up her vagina and anus and waggled them about. I could only shoot that once because of all the dense smoke. We then shot her ping pong ball act. If you have not yet seen it here it is].
[Previously: Alva Bernadine: Sex and Violence Book - Alva Bernadine Photography]

Alva Bernadine: Sex and Violence Book

HomePage - Sex and Violence Book quote [When being interviewed for the foreword of my last book, Bernadinism: How to Dominate Men and Subjugate Women, I was asked what my next project would be. I said I wanted to explore violence. After I thought about it some more, I thought I would include sex as well. The title comes from a slogan. I printed on a T-shirt years ago].
[Previously: Alva Bernadine Photography]

Alva Bernadine Photography

LINK Oh!... well, simply a genius!
quote [Alva Bernadine’s incomparable photographic signature is quite unique. His work combines elements of surrealism and erotic photography with humour. These photographs — be they in color or in black and white - are astounding, provocative and compelling].