For a number of years one of the fetish models that drew my attention was Ariel Anderssen. A few months ago I saw a video of her explaining about pony play, the restraints involved, etc. This doubled my interest in her, because she's not only great to look at, but her obvious enjoyment for bondage, her positive, bubbly personality, and her intelligence really appealed to me. I did a bit of searching on-line, and, among other things, found her twitter account. I read a bit in it, and bookmarked it for future reference. A fleeting thought crossed my mind that I'd love to do an overalls and bondage shoot with her for my site, but her living in England and me being an amateur with no references, I quickly put that idea on the pile of fun things to dream about but not realistic.
A few weeks later I happened to see the link to her twitter account in my browser once more, and gave a quick peek to see what she had been up to. And to my surprise one of the latest posts was a casting call that she was coming to the Netherlands in August, as part of an international tour, and still had a few days available. Now wasn't that a coincidence?? After some consideration I decided to take the big step, create an account on PurplePort, a site for photographers and models, through which the casting call was put. Once my application to that site was approved, I applied to the call, explaining that I was an amateur without references and no studio, so could understand if she wouldn't want to work with me, but that I really admired her work and would love it if she would. I could definitely imagine her hesitating to let herself be tied up by an unknown single guy in a foreign country with some weird fetishes :-O
To my surprise she answered quickly that she'd love to come and work with me, and that she was very enthusiastic doing a fetish she hadn't encountered before. WOW!!!! After ironing out the details we agreed that she would be here for a whole day, on Saturday, August 16th.

Even though I still had 2 months to prepare, it has been a busy time: I wanted to wash my whole collection of overalls and other fetish clothes (88 pieces by now), clean my bondage gear, making lists on which of my collection I wanted her modeling most and which might fit her, which kind of shots and scenario's we might try, and so on. And since I had done very little model photography before, also try to find a practice model for a trial shoot.
For the trial shoot I ask a friend on mine if her daughters (18 and 16) would be interested in helping me out and being rewarded with some nice pictures of them. The older one is going into fashion, so I was hoping she might be interested, while the younger has different interests, but since she took up photography herself, that might make it interesting for her. Still I didn't have high hopes, also because of the holiday period. But the friend responded that both liked to help me out, so two weeks before Ariels visit I had a very useful practice session with the two of them together.

The last week before the real shoot was also hard work getting my apartment clean and tidy, and making piles of the clothes which might fit and which I wanted most to be modeled.

And then finally the day arrived. Ariel arrived by train, and since I don't have a car, I collected her by taking my 2 bicycles to the station, letting her ride one, and me taking her 23kg (almost 50#) suitcase on my luggage carrier behind me. Ariel had been quite worried about that, but since my bike is my primary mode of transportation, I'm used to such things, and it was only a 10 minute ride. Ariel seemed used to biking, but the type of city bikes we have here were a new experience for her, and she loved sitting up straight.
On the bikes we didn't have much opportunity to talk, but we definitely made up for that once we arrived at my apartment. In person Ariel confirmed the impression I had of her from the videos, tweets and such, and it was great fun to spend time with her. Even without the fetish stuff it would have been a really enjoyable experience for me. I think I have to "blame" her mostly for that, for being such a nice person, but I imagine that there also was a compatibility between us that made communication very easy.

First we settled down a bit, had some tea (what else to expect from an English Lady ;-) ), and talked through some of the boring but important details like copyright, safety, schedule and such, but then it was time to get to business. She unloaded her big suitcase to see what things she brought that might useful (quite a lot of stuff for a month on the road!), we went through my bondage gear, and then on to the piles of overalls, jumpsuits and onesies that I selected. Even though I put only about a third of my collection on a table for easy access, it was still an impressive pile.

Immediately the difference between a professional model and an inexperienced amateur became visible: she helped me make decisions, had useful suggestions, and once we started shooting she kept her eyes open until the camera clicked, and immediately assumed a new pose without any prompting, but also seamlessly followed any other request.

For me the combined role of host for refreshments etc, director for setting the scenes, and photographer to capture the result was a bit challenging, and I felt a bit tense because of it, but once we got going I settled more. Still I felt like I didn't have time to really savor having a beautiful woman in overalls and bondage, being busy so constantly and needing to focus on all sorts of technical details. Actually when we exchanged positions for a short while in the afternoon, and she helped me getting in some back-zip and -button jumpsuits I can't fully close by myself, it felt more relaxed and easier to enjoy.

We started off with some of the overalls I wanted to see her in, accessorized with some complementary padlocks. I was glad to find that my estimation on what would fit her was generally right. What helped was that we are approximately the same height - she feels absurdly tall, though in the Netherlands that is less so. (Actually the younger girl at the trial shoot was probably at least 2 inches taller.) But of course Ariel and I don't have exactly the same shape; especially my waist wins hands-down :-O So it still was guessing, and a few of the smaller ones I hoped might fit, didn't. But overall it worked quite well, and in the end she tried on 23 pairs (overalls, jumpsuits), of which 5 were too small, 2 were too big to be pretty, but 16 were useful. Ariel was delighted to find that a number of pairs fit really well, and wouldn't have minded at all to own several of them. (Not that I would find it easy to part with most of the items in my collection.) The one piece pajamas were also very popular, and when we took a break she loved being locked into a fleece pair with hood, if only for the warmth. (Temperatures were around 19 C / 66 F, so slightly chilly if you undress a lot.)

One thing that surprised her about my collection was the diversity. The standard wide denim overalls have never really been my favorites, and in the 35+ years since I developed this fetish I have always looked out for ones that are different. Sometimes because of the fabrics, but mostly how they close around the waist, how the straps are attach front and back, and of course how easy they are to make 'escape-proof'. This diversity automatically brought a lot of variation in colors and patterns, as well.

For me it was rather strange to have a woman in my house that I never met before, who was regularly walking around nearly naked and thought nothing of it. (Of course I knew she also works as a nude model, but knowing it and having it happen is not quite the same.) She was also OK with me watching her get dressed, because for me that is part of the fetish. Watching her pull the clothes up, do the zippers / buttons / buckles up, pulling the straps over the shoulders and attaching them to the bib with a click signaling they are on and won't come off easily again, is part of my fetish. And then applying, or letting her apply padlocks to the key buttons / buckles / ... is the icing on the cake.

For lunch we went to a nearby supermarket, Ariel in her favorite pair of overalls, to get what we felt like eating, and ate it here, in again another pair, white leather this time, in which Ariel felt like an 80s music star.
After doing a few more shoots and talking a lot, it suddenly was 4 PM already, and she had to leave around 6. So the last few hours we went into a higher gear and managed to get quite a few of the shots in that I was hoping for, including some extra bondage, though that was still fairly tame.
Then it was time to pack everything again, unluckily including many things I would have wanted to see her wear too, but also very happy with what we did get done. Then once more on 2 bikes to the station, while balancing the suitcase on the back. We took a bit of extra time so we could still make a few vanilla shots for the people around me that I told I had a model over, but who don't know about my fetishes, and then it was time to get on the train off to the next shoot. (Yes, she had agreed to do another shoot with the next photographer that same evening!)

Looking at all the ideas I had collected in the past month, and all the clothes we didn't try yet, we could have easily filled another day. Ariel did tell me that she is taking a trip to the Netherlands about twice a year - so who knows - we might do it again some time ;-)

The rest of the evening I did some tidying up, mostly to get my bedroom back in order to be able to sleep in it, but was too tired to do much. The following morning I felt a little bit lost and depressed: suddenly the thing you worked towards for 2 months is past and the fun is over. But that passed in about half a day, and now it's back to life as usual. Apart of course from the 478 pictures I took and need to process and sort to put on my website, and the wonderful memories.