Possibilities:  The Photographs of John Willie, edited by J. B. Rund, 2016

John Willie (a pseudonym used by John Alexander Scott Coutts, 1902-1962) took a large number of photographs of women in fetish attire, such as high heeled shoes or boots, and in bondage. Surviving photographs seem to indicate a progression from clothed models in heels to lingerie dressed models in bondage to nude models in bondage (although there are also fairly early nude bondage photos). I think that this progression was partially driven by Willie’s attempts to satisfy customers. His early photographs have a more personal snapshotish quality, his LA bondage photographs are staged progressions. Even in his LA photographs there is still a thread of fascination with high heels and certain types of garments, such as white blouses with ruffles along the front.

Interest in Willie’s bondage photographs after his death in 1962 is demonstrated by a progression of publications starting in the 1970s as softcover stapled “books” appearing under a variety of California publishers (which all seem to be the same person or group). The last of these was published in the early 1990s. Sometimes Willie’s bondage photos are juxtaposed with those by others, such as Irving Klaw. Attributions of photographer or model can be misleading.

Belier, the publisher of Possibilities, published an earlier iteration with the same title in 1985 in Paris. That slim hardcover edition was the first to collect and reproduce a large number of photographs taken in the 1930s and 1940s along with his much later LA series.

This large hardcover edition is comprehensive. The first third of the book is devoted to fetish and bondage photographs taken in Australia in the 1930s and up to 1946 when Willie moved to North America, finally settling in New York City.

A number of models appear but Willie’s second wife, Holly, stands out in her ability to emote and present vulnerability. Photographs of her clothed appear in Willie’s Bizarre magazine, which he began publishing in 1946, and some were reprinted by Irving Klaw.

After settling in New York, Willie did a group of bondage photographs for Klaw (the C700 series). Willie’s photographs often have poses that suggest a narrative. A progression of bondage ties or positions after the model is bound is common, with photographs taken from different angles. “A Typist in Trouble” is Willie’s first explicitly narrative or story set. Other photographers in New York were exploring the story set at about the same time.

The New York section in Possibilities is the shortest, even though it covers 10 years. After Willie’s move to Los Angeles in 1957 he devoted his energies toward developing a business solely based on bondage photography and his comics art. He would complete only one comic before he died (that comic and other artwork is the topic of J. B. Rund’s The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline.

Willie’s LA photographs take up almost half of Possibilities and are grouped by models or story sets and not precisely by chronology.

Willie’s work with Judy Dull appears first and includes outdoor and indoor photos alone or with another model. One of the features of the LA photographs is the model’s gaze back at the photographer and viewer of the photograph. This juxtaposition of the model’s humanity in association with the positions bondage places their body is one reason why Willie deserves to be better known. Only the best fashion photography of that period approached what Willie showed in his photographs of women.

Of course that is a broad generalization and it is too easy sometimes to find images that fall flat or are obscure.

Willie’s best known story set, the 1959 version of “The Stolen Date” is shown along with the earlier version. “The Lazy Room-Mate”, “A Lesson in Riding” and the “’Y’ Story” are all shown in Possibilities in complete form. Personally, I find individual and sequence photographs in the model sets more interesting but in the whole, amongst the collected photographs in Possibilities, it’s hard to select the best. When Willie took a good photograph, whether it was in the 1930s or early 1960, it was very good.

Possibilities, besides all the photographs, has supporting text with footnotes for each section, Australia, New York and Los Angeles. The book begins with a short biography and ends with information of interest to collector.

If there is any complaint, it is that sometimes when presenting photographs, especially those taken in LA, the images are cropped. I can understand the dilemma, present the most photographs showing the widest range, or present just a few. For this book, the widest range was the hard, but best choice.

Copies of this book are available from the publisher Belier Press.