Asian, amateur, young, old, interracial, prego, BDSM-all niche specialties, and all just a small sampling of what's available for viewing at Falcon Foto's www.falconfoto.net, where site creator and company president Gail Harris has built an adult photo library housing over 1 million erotic images.
Harris started her career in the adult business as a nude model in Leeds, England. There, her face and form graced billboards for advertisers like Marlboro and several vodka makers. She was even a regular on the (in)famous "Page 3"-think "smiling, topless centerfold model"-of the London Sun tabloid. Eventually, her career brought her to the U.S., where her relationship with a freelance photographer opened the door for her first sales opportunity. "I had a boyfriend who was a photographer and he was shooting [adult] material," she said. "One day I came over to the house. He'd been cleaning and he'd taken a whole bunch of images and literally thrown them in the trash-said they were old crap [and] no one would buy them, [so] I asked if I could have a shot at selling them. I went down to the newsstand and found some [men's] magazines and I looked at the addresses, packaged up the photos and sent them off. A couple of days later I sold them and I said, 'Wow, this is pretty good business.'"
Harris has since found success along a number of avenues, including still photography, and in-house production and distribution of videos. She also originated the concept and layout for Barely Legal and Hometown Girls magazines, eventually selling her interest in the mags to her co-publisher, Larry Flynt. But Harris says it was her initial success with the two mags that helped her to position Falcon Foto as a player in the world of content providers. She's also working on publishing two new adult mags, but the details are a secret at the moment.
"I'm excited to see how things fly on the Internet because I think there's a void in the market. People have seen enough triple-X hardcore and generic photographs," said Harris. "They're starting to look for something a little more unique-legs, butts, old women-and they want to search out and find it."
One unique offering that's in the works for Webmasters is a live, behind-the-scenes feed featuring a peek at the day-to-day filming of adult videos. Of course, there are other perks and bonuses available now for users and Webmasters alike. "We're offering free photos just to go to the site and every month we put up seasonal pictures. There's a license [on the Website] that says you have the rights to use them without a commitment to buy anything. If you refer a friend, you get a reduced rate and if you send traffic to our membership site, we'll give you the best value in photography.
"Presently we're working on membership sites like www.falcongold.com for Webmasters whose main business is sending traffic," Harris continued. "A Webmaster can sign up and send us traffic and we'll pay them by the click, or if they want, by an amount of photography.
"I think there's a slew of good quality, mainstream adult Websites, along the lines of a Hustler or a Penthouse and there are a few smaller niche sites coming up. But I haven't seen a lot of really good niche sites that understand it and concentrate on different themes. I think that's the void that we want to fill."
