Joseph Matt - Cam Boy

“Remember, today’s all about putting the past behind you and looking towards the future,” Mobeen clarified. “So try and let that come across in the interview.”

I nodded, taking it all in.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“Taxi’s here!” Jess called – she had an app on her phone to notify her of its arrival.

“Great, then I’ll see you guys in a bit.” Mobeen said.

Jess and I jumped into the taxi, she in the front passenger seat and me in the back seat with my rucksack to my left. She gave the driver the post code of our required destination, and clarified it was OK with him to film inside.

“I’m from the BBC,” she announced, confidently. “Is it fine with you if I film while we’re driving?”

“’slong as you don’t get me on cam love.”

With a face like hers how could any man refuse? If she’d have asked him if it was OK to release a crate of poisonous tarantulas inside his vehicle that she’d just smuggled back from a trip to the Australian outback he’d have probably obliged – so long as she made sure of it they didn’t bite him…

We hit the road.

“So Joseph, what’s happening today?”

“Today’s a really big day, ’cause today I’m going to be doing a photo shoot, my first ever photo shoot actually, so that’s gonna be in Soho with this guy called Matt Spike who does a lot of like, fetish photography.”

“And how are you looking forward to it? Are you nervous, excited?”

“A bit of both. Yeah, I’m a little bit nervous, but also pretty excited. Up until now I’ve been kind of operating as like a one man band – producing and editing all my content myself, or with the help of my boyfriend. So I think today’s a big step towards the future, and hopefully it’s gonna further my profile online and prove to be a positive thing.”

“Excellent.”

We’d arrived at our destination. Jess thanked the driver for letting her film in his car, and we both hopped out of it to regroup with Mobeen.

After taking a few standard ‘walking’ shots of me making my way to the ground floor entrance of the building, we headed inside.

Though he lived on the floor below it, Matt’s photography studio was right at the top of several flights of stairs, so it was a bit of a mission for the three of us to get all that we needed up there.

As with Steve, they wanted us to meet for the first time ‘on camera’, which meant I had to sit awkwardly on the stairwell just outside while they introduced themselves, got him to sign a few papers and mic’d him up.

Then Mobeen called out for me. I trotted up the final flight of stairs and into view to greet Matt, who was sitting at his desk with something between a smile and a smirk on his face.

“Alright?”

“Hey what’s up?” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah, finally, ” he said, as we both shook hands.

Awkward introductions out of the way, I unzipped my rucksack and emptied out the collection of fetish gear I’d brought along with me – all the way from Wales.

The first look he wanted to shoot, against a grungy backdrop he had set up, was of me dressed in leather. I had a harness, jock strap and boots packed with me, but was a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t actually own a leather jacket of my own.

“Not to worry,” he said, loaning me one of his.

I could tell just from the feel of it that it was premium quality. It must have cost him a fair bit of money.

All geared up – with a few fairly heavy duty chains around my neck and fingerless leather gloves for that extra grungy sex appeal, I took my place in front of the backdrop. Matt fiddled around with the umbrella lighting till he was confident with the set up, and then starting snapping away at me with his camera.

For the first one or two frames I stood there rather awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do with myself.

“I feel like I wanna like, grab the jacket like this,” I said, pulling the fabric in tighter towards me with my elbows outstretched.

“Yeah man, just feel it out,” he said. “These are only test shots, no pressure.”

He took note of my muscular thighs and had me tense them in a way that would highlight them best, and explained, without being patronising in any way, shape or form, a few good positions to aim for when angling my face in order to make the most of the light.

We took some shots of me smoking a cigarette, still in the leather get-up, and I must admit that I rather enjoyed inhaling and exhaling to the beat of Matt’s camera.

“That’s awesome,” he’d say. “Little to the left… yeah that’s looking hot!”

He was so encouraging and made me feel confident and at ease. It hardly felt like work at all. I’d seen his portfolio beforehand and knew what a talent he had for capturing great images, but the other models all seemed to know what they were doing, whereas I was a complete and utter novice. I’d been expecting to come across looking stiff and awkward in every shot, but looking over them with him afterwards at his computer screen, there were very few I strongly disliked, if any at all. For once I wasn’t afraid to admit it, I looked good !

He insisted I was a natural, but I don’t think I could have ever taken those shots without his superb direction.

“Right,” he said stroking his bearded chin. “If we shoot one more outfit? I’ll let you decide which.”

I immediately opted for the backless black and red striped singlet. It was something of my trademark ‘performance outfit’ when camming, and my favourite of all that I’d brought along with me.

“Sometimes I like to take my camera out with me into the streets,” Matt declared. “The lighting’s looking pretty good out there today wouldn’t you say? There’s a few nice spots I know of round here where we could shoot you at for sure, lots of graffiti on the walls, that kinda thing, yeah?”

I stared at him vacantly. Was this a serious invitation?

“So… are you up for that?”

I changed into my singlet, and laughed.

“I can’t go out dressed like this! ”

“Sure you can! Just throw some clothes on over the top and when we get to where we wanna shoot you at then you can just slip ’em right off.”

His confidence and ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude was admirable and infectious, I had to admit, but I felt like he’d forgotten that the TV cameras were there, so I looked over to Jess and Mobeen for their approval. We had a two to three hour slot to shoot in and had only been at Matt’s for about 45 minutes, so time wasn’t an issue.

“Alright,” I said confidently. “Let’s do it!”

I quickly put on some comfy jogging bottoms – which looked like fetish wear alone with the glossy black material they were made from, tucked them into my biker boots and threw the jacket I’d rocked up wearing on to cover my top half.

“I think we’re missing something,” Matt said, looking me up and down. “Come with me.”

He led me downstairs and took me over to where there was a collection of flat peak caps displayed on his mantelpiece. He picked out the leather one for me to wear.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Looks great,” I said, admiring my own reflection in the mirror.

“It does,” he agreed. “Right. I think we’re ready then.”

We stepped outside, chatting casually with one another as Matt sought out ‘the perfect spot’ to shoot at, and Jess and Mobeen raced ahead to capture on film each step of our walk through the central streets of Soho. None of the onlooker’s glares seemed to faze Matt at all. I think he liked the attention we were getting; two alternative looking guys (Matt’s look at least was very much alternative – with his cropped Mohican-strip hairstyle and tattooed neck and arms) strolling around town with a TV crew latched on to us. He took it in his stride.