THE SEX FILES: Interview with Anton Fury
Anton Fury is a fetish photographer, adult website owner/developer and writer who lives and works close to my home and is a guy I actually know from way back when we were both in bands playing the original NJ rock scene. Still violently into classic rock (as am I) talking with Anton was like sitting and talking to a mirror image of myself (how’s that for scary?) A more sparkling personality and nicer guy you won’t soon meet, Anton Fury has got his hands and ever-calculating noggin’ in a bunch of adult enterprises and I was lucky enough to get a sit-down with him and get his take on the state of fetish photography and where the adult business is at these days…and where he’s going with it.
How long have you been doing fetish photography?
I started in fetish about 15 years ago, both behind and in front of the camera. At that time there was a pretty lucrative market for the fetish niche. My partner, Mistress Rhiannon and I started writing a monthly column for Nugget, a fetish mag that was on the newsstands right next to Playboy and Penthouse. I began getting my pictures published virtually the day I started shooting.
This is almost becoming a cliché’ question but, how have you seen the business change over the years?
As I said; when we first started, fetish was booming. Although it was underground, The Vault, as well as other clubs like Hellfire were packed…with real “players.” Unfortunately, The Vault was on Howard Stern and virtually overnight the club was filled with “tourists,” and the real players disappeared. At that point, everything went back underground and the fetish niche market pretty much dried up.
So considering the above, how have you changed what you do?
I maintain a 300 sq. ft. studio; originally, it was Mistress Rhiannon’s dungeon. Lined with rows of crosses, benches and torture devices, I like to describe it as the gym from Hell! As the fetish niche dried up, I moved more into the nude glamour type of photography and slowly over time my studio transformed from fetish to porn. I got a job creating websites for a major adult magazine publisher and being a big-tit aficionado, I kept my eye on their boob mags: Gent, D-Cup and Busty Beauties. I didn’t think they looked all that good to tell you the truth, from both an editorial and a photographic standpoint, so six years ago I was given editorship of all three. Ultimately, I became the exclusive photographer for all of them. As well as I knew fetish; I know breasts even more.
What are you into presently, what’s happing in the New Year for your business?
Due to the Internet, publishing is “swirling the drain;” newspapers, magazines what have you, they are all on borrowed time. While I’m still doing the mags, I have started a new project of Internet niche sites called www.FuryCash.com. Right now, we feature, CultofdeSade.com, CleavageKittens.com, ExtremeXXXtits.com. MilfinMagic.com, FunWithFatChicks.com, FuryPix.com, as well as Rhiannon’s 2 sites, MistressRhiannon.com and RhiannonXXX.com. This is only phase 1, we have plans for many other innovative things that we’ll add to the project over the next few months.