The World Wide Web is by definition an international phenomenon, which has spread from the arctic to the antipodes. Honey Blake (www.honeyblake.com) is a content provider from Australia, and one of the small but growing contingent of e-pornsters from Down Under who made the journey all the way from "Oz" to Las Vegas for January's Internext.
"Honey Blake" is also an Aussie photographer who formerly lensed for men's magazines, glamour shoots, model portfolios, group functions, and the like. But Blake says she hasn't shot a wedding for more than two years, since April 1999. Impetus from her stable of models compelled Blake to go online. "The girls looked for other work, to Webmasters outside of Australia," Blake explains. "I started an amateur site four years ago, which just muddled along. But about two years ago I decided to give the wholesale side a go, and it has been a resounding success."
Today, Honey Blake e-tails fetish, niche, straight, and specialty still photos via CDs, instant downloads, and zip files, to clients throughout North America and Europe. Blake describes the pix as, "One girl, Hustler-style. Some couples sex. And public nudity - a girl outside nude - with someone in the background." The latter is a specialty of Blake, who says the company name was chosen using a thesaurus while referencing the sugary names used by many porn stars and Websites.
Blake says, "As an adult content provider, I feel we are just part of an international community, and I do not have specific Aussie content or target Aussie buyers."
In fact, Blake says, most of her content is purchased by U.S.-based Websites. "Sometimes I think U.S. residents are surprised when they find out we are in Australia - they would have been expecting someone within America. They may be a bit wary about sending payment overseas. We get quite a few Europeans who figure if they are going to deal with another country - normally the U.S. - Australia is as good as any," asserts Blake.
Nonetheless, the photographer adds there are significant advantages to working Down Under. First of all, those Australian models. "They're fit, healthy, good quality girls, who are often blonde and tanned," she asserts. January's Internext experienced Down Under beauty in the flesh, as Blake brought two then-models from the firm's stable - Queensland's Miss Erotica and Miss Nude South Australia - to the company booth at the Vegas trade show.
Blake says Aussie models are paid half of what their Yankee counterparts receive. "That's because it costs half to live here of what it costs to live in the States. In general, our economy makes Australia very competitive. In addition to low modeling fees, we have a bloody good exchange rate. It's like the Third World, except we have a sophisticated country, with infrastructure and technology such as broadband and photo gear, on par with America."
The Australian economy and digital technology has enabled Honey Blake to evolve the firm's forte ( is the firm's site for info on models and custom shoots). "Most of what I do now is custom shoots, which we do well and cheaply," the photographer says. "I shoot six, seven days a week. We can do custom shoots in 24-hour turn-arounds. While our zip files match the prices of other companies, we can do custom shoots of 100 images for only $250 U.S. dollars. We often have T-shirts printed using client's site logos and we shoot models in them as part of the custom shoot. All this has led to regular, repeat clients, who return every week, such as , a membership and public nudity site.
"We also do lots of fetish work," the Webmaster adds. "In 2000, we had a fetish Website client we took thousands of pictures for for six to eight months. We bought everything necessary, including our own dungeon space, for these shoots featuring whips, candle wax, bondage, peeing, piercing. We have props - fetish is huge for us, and we're set up to do it. So many others are doing straight stuff; we want to be known for fetish," says Blake, who has also established a fetish and niche site (www.contentkingdom.com); the pay site www.eroticpunishment.com is one of Honey Blake's Yankee clients. But the Australian firm also provides content to other content providers. "We wholesale to wholesalers," says Blake. Proving that via e-commerce, the World Wide Web levels the global playing field, from the Czech Republic to Crocodile Dundee.
