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| Royale Studio - Corporal Punishment (from The Arrest, ERTR-1) |
Listen Up Boys!
I have been concerned for some time now about the conflict which is developing between the original purpose of the mitchmen blog (which was to showcase my own art and my interests in erotic art and photography generally) and my recent project to publish my entire collection of pictures by Royale Studio and it's associate Hussar to serve as an open archive for posterity. As time has gone on, the Royale project has grown in scale, partly due to the inclusion of model profiles such as the recent series of articles about Peter George. I am aware, however, that many visitors to this blog come here primarily for the art and are less interested in vintage British photography and it's significance with respect to Pride .
Striking a balance between fetish art and the Royale posts has become harder and harder because the amount of material I have accumulated about Royale has grown significantly since I published my original articles about them back in 2010. Recently I have started systematically researching what was published about them in the old beefcake magazines and this has substantially swollen the total even further, including the discovery of storyettes which I didn't know existed. I currently have a backlog of 4 or 5 articles and hundreds of images which I am holding back to avoid swamping this blog with Royale stuff. In addition I am already having to revisit the new articles to update and correct them, which does not fit into the flow of this blog very well.
I could just dump all my material onto Drive but I think the supporting articles I write help me to organise my thoughts and give useful insights into the pictures themselves. Unfortunately one of the adverse consequences of the publishing constraint at mitchmen is that I am induced to write bigger and bigger articles. Bigger articles take disproportionately longer to produce and are not very digestible for the reader.
To resolve this conflict I am proposing to open a new blog dedicated to Royale. The existing material at this blog will be replicated there but I will probably retain what's already here and continue to post new spicy trailers to direct interested readers to the new blog.
My hope is that I can publish smaller articles more frequently at the new blog and update them as required without adversely affecting this one. I can also create a skeleton framework of the entire archive to be gradually fleshed out over time. For visitors, I hope it will provide a better organised, simpler access point to the material.
I'm sticking with blogger as the platform for now because I know it well. It's not ideal for what I want to do, but I'm not aware of a platform that is free or cheap that would be any better. To be honest, I'm not really sure at the moment what features I will really want in the final analysis but I have some new ideas which I can try out more easily in a dedicated blog. In fact my experimentations have already led me to create two new blogs which are interlinked, one being a photo gallery essentially, the other providing indexing and background information on the Studio.
The Royale Studio blog provides the main entry point with indexes and general material.
The Royale Studio Gallery contains all the published sets and can be accessed directly for browsing
or else via the indexes and links at the Royale Studio blog.
PLEASE NOTE: The Gallery blog has some interesting new features which are explained in
'How the Archive is Organised'. I'm keen that people explore them and give me feedback.
It's long been rumoured that Google will ditch blogger eventually but I can't really anticipate that scenario. Thanks to Yahoo, I'm accustomed to picking up my possessions and moving on and if the project is a success it will probably need a more permanent home later. The Adonis Male site is a possible alternative platform but I don't know that it is any more permanent.
You are invited to visit the new blog to see how it is developing
Be warned that some links may not work properly at present.
However, I welcome comments about any aspect of it.
I suggest you start by going to:
3 comments:
Frankly, I find this a sensible and productive idea. And I think anyone who disagrees should be required to be the star of a full public reenactment of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.“😑
There was probably no way of knowing how your Royale Studio interest was going to grow, so I'm impressed that you feel it's worth your time to keep the whole thing going at the level you currently do.
It's only through your research that my interest has grown so much.
We can't take your work for granted, so thank you very much.
Yr Royale/Hussar research & publication is of enduring value& this is very good news. Have an OBE.
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