I have really enjoyed the Timeline threads that have been put up on the Lifestyle board. Having been here for almost 9 years now, it is nice looking back at some of the OG models and how they've changed. Especially the one for Quinne, who I've had the fortune to be acquainted with in real... more
I have really enjoyed the Timeline threads that have been put up on the Lifestyle board. Having been here for almost 9 years now, it is nice looking back at some of the OG models and how they've changed. Especially the one for Quinne, who I've had the fortune to be acquainted with in real life and who has worked hard to reinvent her life over the years.
So, because I'm a hopeless narcissist, I thought I'd do my own timeline!
This is what I looked like about a month before I applied to be an SG. Long black hair, didn't wear much makeup. I was with my first major boyfriend at the time.
Here is one of my application pictures.
And one from my first set, Stalks. So skinny! So few tattoos! Such poor photo quality! Back then, before digital photography was so accessible, I had the aforementioned boyfriend shoot me on film and had the little photo lab I took the film to put it on a CD. It's amazing how much photography has changed since then. As you can see, SG's quality standards have risen dramatically since then. There were between 100 and 200 SGs when this set got purchased. I was 20 years old, in my sophomore year of college in Santa Cruz.
This is from my second set, Beef. I shot a set in between these two but it was pretty poor quality, and I either didn't submit it or it got rejected. Beef was really fun to shoot. It was my first time working with a real photographer.
Here's how I looked as a "civilian" back then. I was a junior in college. My face looks so young - I still had baby fat! I also had still not learned how to groom my eyebrows.
That spring I and 49 other SGs got flown to Hollywood to be in the music video for "Shake Your Blood" by Probot. I got to meet Lemmy Kilmeister! Here's me with Thursday and Trent. That weekend was super, super fun, and was the first time I met many other people from Suicidegirls.
Next up I shaved my head and shot my one and only multi girl set with Neko, Cemetary. It was very cold and very early. It was also super creepy. We were in a centuries-old graveyard in Santa Cruz that is set in a wooded hillside. It was all misty and ghostly.
Time passed. SG's standards changed, the number of girls and members exploded, and the alt porn industry began to have a mini-boom. I shot Lowrider in I think 2006. Before member review, a frequent problem was that staff would buy your set and then it would sit in the queue for months, even years, before being put up. You weren't allowed to submit more sets if you had a set in queue, although you could submit a set to replace the one that was in queue. Basically staff would buy sets but not think they were good enough to go up before other, better sets. This was a source of great rancor among girls. Believe it or not, it felt like even more of a popularity contest back then, because it was completely opaque - staff would say everyone was given equal consideration, but some girls would have 4 sets in a year and others none. Due to my frustration with that system wherein Lowrider sat in the queue for months, I went into the archive for about a year in 2006-2007. I came back and they put my set up the same week, which was common. I lived in Oakland at the time and had gotten to be friends with Adahlia.
^Can you even imagine that going into MR now? No offense to the photographer, but damn. Blurry, bad light, and I look like an idiot in about half the pictures. Much as people complain about MR, sets on SG have only risen in photographic quality. I remember thinking my legs looked so fat in that set, also, which is funny because I was way skinnier than I am now.
Next I shot with Taye, after coming out of the archive, moving to Berkeley, and growing my hair out quite a bit. I had modeled a bit more while I was archived, and worked with a number of more professional photographers. I think this is the set where I had the best modeling skill, and Taye was already a good photographer. She has since become excellent. This was my first set in the MR system and the first set I had after tagging was implemented. Scary!
It's funny that I only have one set with my hair that color, because I kept it that way for over four years.
After that I shot a couple of sets with my then-boyfriend in 2009, but he was a beginning photographer and they did not get accepted. I no longer have the photos.
One thing that's pretty frustrating about Suicidegirls in its current incarnation is lack of photographer access. If you aren't an established hit on the front page, it can be hard to shoot with staff photographers - you end up shooting mostly with beginners, which makes it hard to get a set bought. I don't blame my photographers for not having a set up recently, though. There are only 365 sets a year, and there are thousands and thousands of girls vying for those slots.
Last year I shot Azure with Bob. I like this set but I don't think I was comfortable in my own skin. I've gained a lot of weight since I last had a front page set. I feel sexy day to day, but it's hard to reconcile my self image with the way I look in photos. Plus, I hadn't shot in a long time, so I just wasn't as comfy in front of a camera. That said I think we got some nice shots.
Another set of me should be ready to submit in the next few months. I feel good about it. Who knows if it will ever get bought - I kind of doubt it. But shooting is fun so as long as I can get photographers to work with me I will probably keep doing it.
I hope you've enjoyed this retrospective. I really love being a Suicidegirl and participating in the community here. I've made so many friends in the last 9 years that I never would have met. It's a huge part of my life!
So, because I'm a hopeless narcissist, I thought I'd do my own timeline!
This is what I looked like about a month before I applied to be an SG. Long black hair, didn't wear much makeup. I was with my first major boyfriend at the time.
Here is one of my application pictures.
And one from my first set, Stalks. So skinny! So few tattoos! Such poor photo quality! Back then, before digital photography was so accessible, I had the aforementioned boyfriend shoot me on film and had the little photo lab I took the film to put it on a CD. It's amazing how much photography has changed since then. As you can see, SG's quality standards have risen dramatically since then. There were between 100 and 200 SGs when this set got purchased. I was 20 years old, in my sophomore year of college in Santa Cruz.
This is from my second set, Beef. I shot a set in between these two but it was pretty poor quality, and I either didn't submit it or it got rejected. Beef was really fun to shoot. It was my first time working with a real photographer.
Here's how I looked as a "civilian" back then. I was a junior in college. My face looks so young - I still had baby fat! I also had still not learned how to groom my eyebrows.
That spring I and 49 other SGs got flown to Hollywood to be in the music video for "Shake Your Blood" by Probot. I got to meet Lemmy Kilmeister! Here's me with Thursday and Trent. That weekend was super, super fun, and was the first time I met many other people from Suicidegirls.
Next up I shaved my head and shot my one and only multi girl set with Neko, Cemetary. It was very cold and very early. It was also super creepy. We were in a centuries-old graveyard in Santa Cruz that is set in a wooded hillside. It was all misty and ghostly.
Time passed. SG's standards changed, the number of girls and members exploded, and the alt porn industry began to have a mini-boom. I shot Lowrider in I think 2006. Before member review, a frequent problem was that staff would buy your set and then it would sit in the queue for months, even years, before being put up. You weren't allowed to submit more sets if you had a set in queue, although you could submit a set to replace the one that was in queue. Basically staff would buy sets but not think they were good enough to go up before other, better sets. This was a source of great rancor among girls. Believe it or not, it felt like even more of a popularity contest back then, because it was completely opaque - staff would say everyone was given equal consideration, but some girls would have 4 sets in a year and others none. Due to my frustration with that system wherein Lowrider sat in the queue for months, I went into the archive for about a year in 2006-2007. I came back and they put my set up the same week, which was common. I lived in Oakland at the time and had gotten to be friends with Adahlia.
^Can you even imagine that going into MR now? No offense to the photographer, but damn. Blurry, bad light, and I look like an idiot in about half the pictures. Much as people complain about MR, sets on SG have only risen in photographic quality. I remember thinking my legs looked so fat in that set, also, which is funny because I was way skinnier than I am now.
Next I shot with Taye, after coming out of the archive, moving to Berkeley, and growing my hair out quite a bit. I had modeled a bit more while I was archived, and worked with a number of more professional photographers. I think this is the set where I had the best modeling skill, and Taye was already a good photographer. She has since become excellent. This was my first set in the MR system and the first set I had after tagging was implemented. Scary!
It's funny that I only have one set with my hair that color, because I kept it that way for over four years.
After that I shot a couple of sets with my then-boyfriend in 2009, but he was a beginning photographer and they did not get accepted. I no longer have the photos.
One thing that's pretty frustrating about Suicidegirls in its current incarnation is lack of photographer access. If you aren't an established hit on the front page, it can be hard to shoot with staff photographers - you end up shooting mostly with beginners, which makes it hard to get a set bought. I don't blame my photographers for not having a set up recently, though. There are only 365 sets a year, and there are thousands and thousands of girls vying for those slots.
Last year I shot Azure with Bob. I like this set but I don't think I was comfortable in my own skin. I've gained a lot of weight since I last had a front page set. I feel sexy day to day, but it's hard to reconcile my self image with the way I look in photos. Plus, I hadn't shot in a long time, so I just wasn't as comfy in front of a camera. That said I think we got some nice shots.
Another set of me should be ready to submit in the next few months. I feel good about it. Who knows if it will ever get bought - I kind of doubt it. But shooting is fun so as long as I can get photographers to work with me I will probably keep doing it.
I hope you've enjoyed this retrospective. I really love being a Suicidegirl and participating in the community here. I've made so many friends in the last 9 years that I never would have met. It's a huge part of my life!
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) to make room for some Earth-shattering masterpieces I have to present you guys, ha:
