John Willie produced a single set of 12 photographs of the model he called Alice shot in 1960. Changes in room arrangement/furniture sometimes help to date Willie photographs. In the first two photographs below, to the left of the model there is a small table with a lamp and behind that is a white drop-leaf table. Compare the same corner of the room shown in the earlier photo of June shot in 1958.

Sometimes there appear in the marketplace four-up prints of John Willie LA bondage photographs. The overall print size is 8×10 inches, which has four 4×5 inch prints. The LA bondage photos were produced as contact prints from negatives. Willie then cut these down to 4×10 (two-up) or 4×5 prints to be put into sets to mail to customers.

I have several four-up prints of photos from model sets of Pat and Judy taken in 1960. A four-up print of photos of June was included in mailings of John Willie’s comic The Race for the Gold Cup as a promotion for his bondage photos.

One four-up of Pat that I have includes two outtakes for the set of photos that included those of Pat bound to a bench. These are the two on the right.

The two on the left are from another set produced at the same time. J. B. Rund reproduces the full set of 12 photos of Pat bound to a bench on pages 348 and 349 of Possibilities: The Photographs of John Willie (2016).

It’s possible that Willie used these outtakes in later mailings, removing two of the photos that appeared in the published set.

Possibilities: The Photographs of John Willie is one of the essential books for the work of John Willie. It is available from the publisher.

The original Feral_Rabbit blog was associated with my website devoted to my collection of John Willie LA bondage photographs. Both that blog and the website no longer exist. The website has been superseded by J. B. Rund’s Possibilities: The Photographs of John Willie. The blog was replaced by the Badrabbit blog on LiveJournal and now here.

One of the posts in the old blog was about inscriptions found on the backs of some of the John Willie photographs in my collection. Some of the inscriptions were made by Willie. Others were made by people who worked for Willie and handled mailing of ordered photos and/or those who ordered the photographs.

The first groups of bondage photographs offered in Willie’s flyers (J. B. Rund has kindly shared his collection of these rare flyers) were sets of June photographed in 1958 and Doree photographed in late 1958 or early 1959. These were lingerie bondage sets, there was no nudity. Many of the photographs I own from these sets have inscriptions. Here’s one on the back of a photograph of Doree in ink. The photographs of June and Doree that are inscribed in ink are in this hand.

Other photographs in these sets have penciled inscriptions showing first initial of the model and set number. This is another photographs from Doree set number 1.

Around June or July 1959 Willie offered sets of photographs which included models bound on a St. Andrew’s cross. Some of the photographs I have from these sets have the model’s name and a set number according to the order of sets in Willie’s flyer. These inscriptions are in pencil. Generally there is just a set number on the back, just one photo in the set has the model’s name and set number.

There is one photograph in my collection that has an inscription that is obviously in Willie’s hand. The set of Lorie photographs was shot in 1960 and consisted of 8 lingerie bondage photos.

Willie called Doree’s photos shot in mid-1959 and later Doree (B). These sets were released in groups of 12 photos, unlike the lingerie bondage sets of 8. There was nudity in Doree (B) sets. Amongst the last photographs Willie shot were the 4 sets of Doree (B) in late 1960 or, most likely, 1961.

I have one photograph with a rubber stamped inscription on the back, along with a initials in pen, probably by Willie.

There is another photograph in the collection with a pen inscription showing the set number.

As an aside, I created a personal html catalog that I host on my computers for reference. I’ve organized the collection of photographs according to different criteria and include information about inscriptions found on the back of photos. This catalog is not available online.

John Willie moved to North America the end of 1945 intending to publish a fetish magazine. He settled first in Montreal and then moved to New York City. He brought from Australia photographic negatives and ideas for artwork and the type of magazine he wanted to produce.

Bizarre was published by Willie from 1946 until 1956 when he sold the magazine to a friend who published a few more issues before the publication folded. The magazine was filled with original artwork by Willie, photographs by Willie and others, stories, and letters to the editor. Most issues before 1956 had cover illustrations by Willie and some have his comics. Willie’s interests were bondage and fetish apparel (especially high heel shoes) but the magazines depended on material furnished by readers so the range of activities and dress was wide.

All the issues of Bizarre were reprinted by Taschen in the 1990s in two volumes and copies can still be found online. Original copies sometimes appear on eBay. I’m reproducing the front cover and a few pages from number 11 published in 1952.

The cover artwork by Willie shows some of the activities and dress found in Bizarre. This artwork carries forward an idea he presented in his only published artwork in London Life magazine (1935), the magazine that was the inspiration for Bizarre.

This photograph for an article about high heel shoes appears on page 7. I’m not sure, but I suspect the photo was taken by Willie in Australia in the 1930s with his second wife Holly as model.

This is the beginning of NYC’s story “From Girl to Pony” (on page 24) which is completed in issue 12. The artwork is by Willie.

This is a photograph on page 32 by Willie taken in Australia of Holly. In the late 1940s Willie sold a number of his bondage and high heel photos of Holly and others taken in Australia in the 1930s (and possibly early 1940s) to Irving Klaw. Klaw carried these photos in his catalogs until about the mid-1950s.

The reader’s photograph appearing on page 63, above part of another reader’s letter, shows the properly attired 1950s Domme. A copy of a 1946 issue of Bizarre is lying on the floor by her right shoulder. This same issue appears in September 2012 InStyle magazine (on page 488). The vintage copy was purchased by an editor who liked “the gorgeous images of shoes.”