Editing Roca Vol.6

I am currently developing and editing photographs I took last summer for Roca Vol.6.

I am a little surprised that nearly a year has already passed since the shoot. The pace at which I take photographs is far faster than the pace at which I publish the magazine, and as a result, more and more unpublished images keep piling up. I really need to finish the next issue soon.

Taking photographs and turning them into a complete magazine are, of course, two very different kinds of work. Even when I like a photograph on its own, I may decide not to use it because of the overall flow of the pages or because it is too similar to another image.

At the same time, looking back at photographs after some time has passed often changes the way I see them. Sometimes I notice images that did not stand out to me immediately after the shoot. At other times, photographs that once felt particularly strong no longer make the final selection.

For this post, I have chosen several photographs that will not appear in Roca Vol.6. They were left out for reasons related to the structure of the magazine, but they are all images that I still like very much.

Photographing a woman in a school uniform within the context of kinbaku is a subject that can be difficult to approach today.

On the other hand, when looking through older Japanese SM magazines, scenes of women in school uniforms being subjected to various forms of torment appear repeatedly. I do not mean to endorse those images without question. Still, the fact that this motif was used so often seems to reveal something important about the structure of desire and taboo within the SM imagery of that period.

SM sometimes involves the idea of defiling something considered pure, touching what should not be touched, or breaking social rules and taboos. The school uniform may have been used as a symbol of innocence, discipline, obedience, or of someone not yet fully incorporated into adult society.

During this shoot, the model, Ren—who is, of course, an adult—happened to bring a school uniform with her. We decided on the spot to use it for the photographs. I think this was only the second time in my life that I had photographed someone wearing a school uniform.

I felt slightly self-conscious about it, but looking through the images again while developing them, I think we ended up making some surprisingly good photographs.

It will still take a little more time before Roca Vol.6 is complete. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this small selection, including photographs that will not appear in the finished magazine.