Kiss of Fire (German Edition) Hardcover – June 1, 2003

Lovers.Barbara Nitke uses the word almost immediately in her introduction. Each time she writes it, she makes it seem so simple, as if the emotional bonds that seal the people she photographs were visible as the light that bathes them, palpable as the breath they share. In the most striking of her images, those emotions, and feelings - the love being celebrated and exchanged truly is a tangible character in the scene, proudly declaring its validity. From image to image the language of the lovers changes: The eager light of a woman tensed for the next sensation from her Master, near monolithic in his anonymity. We wonder what it is that she recognizes as she gazes into the face hidden from us. A powerfully built woman, clad all in black leather gently catches the body of her slave, cat of tails still in hand. Having just administered blows to his nude back, she regards him gently as he reclines into her embrace, drunk in the sensation. A tiny Asian woman almost glows as she cradles her much lover, bearded and burly, but rapt in possession - he has given himself to her bound and gagged. The light of her face and shower of her hair pour over him as they drift in a Pieta of trust and desire. A regally statuesque Domina bends to her fragile female sub, dangling a kiss just above the thirsty mouth of her charge, made totally naked and vulnerable as she sits on the commode. There is no doubt in the mind of the photographer or her subjects, what they are telling us are love stories, perhaps not in the idiom we are most used to, but love stories regardless.Kiss of Fire is a collection of love stories every bit as valid and timeless and the Song of Solomon. The plates are the result of an odyssey Nitke has willingly taken over the last decade through the BDSM underground in New York City. She made her way to this otherworld through an early career stint as a still photographer on over 300 porn films. Befriending porn legend Rick Savage led to her introduction to The Eulenspeigel Society, the oldest and largest SM support and educational group in the nation. It was at their twice-weekly meetings that she discovered the truly "normal" people - teachers, nurses, businessmen, husbands, wives - who made up the leather "underground" and populated SM clubs such as Hellfire and the Vault. Nitke attended meetings, clubs and parties for months before asking members to allow her to photograph them in their play, always making clear her intentions to publish the final images. Many refused, justifiably fearful of losing jobs and perhaps their very families should they be seen in the resulting images. Soon though Nitke found a small group of lovers (her word) brave and proud and curious enough to include her in their scenes. For the next decade, Nitke and her camera submerged in the darkly beautiful, swirling currents where sensation, love and trust mix with flesh.Nitke approaches each scene as a friend, a participant, a fellow artist, even as a lover in ways, but never as a mere spectator or even a journalist. She uses infrared film for the soft, glowing quality it lends to living things. In fact, the lovers truly seem to radiate the sensations and emotions they revel in to the point of joyous immolation. Nitke rejects the "mechanics" of SM in favor of capturing "the lovers...lost in each other." In every image, she does exactly that - disappearing so thoroughly into each image that we are alone in our watching. Nitke, embraced by the lovers in their covenant of trust and excitement, migrates to the other side with them. She does allow us her heart and eyes to see with: The affection and tenderness she depicts her lovers (why not?) with grants them something higher than mere dignity. What she brings to this world is the ultimate benediction - normalcy. She sees them as men and women, loving and being loved. Just like us...only better.*Note: Barbara Nitke is also a co-plaintiff in an important challenge to the Communications Decency Act, a law limiting free expression on the Internet. The case is expected to go to the Supreme Court and is already garnering considerable national press. For more information, log on to Nitke's website, [...] or [...]

In an attempt to be 'real' the photographer has ended up producing a book full of amateurish looking black and white photographs of S&M practitioners. It is true to life in so far as people are in general somewhat ugly, but to have taken no effort to show the 'models' in as good a light as possible the photographer has done a disservice to them, to the S&M community and to anyone who buys this book. Clearly my review runs against the trend, and perhaps 'amateurish' was the wrong word to use in this case. perhapse, too avante-garde may have been fairer, and calling the models ugly was just rude on my part. Please view www ikonen-magazin de / rezension / Nitke.htm to see some of the phots for yourself. I should also point out my support for Barbara Nitke, just a dislike for the photography in this book.

Barbara Nitke's long awaited book KISS OF FIRE (Kehrer Verlag, Germany 2003) is finally here and it is a scorcher. Nitke, a fine art photographer of the SM experience depicts her controversial subject matter with sensitivity, wit, and utter seriousness. It's neither porn nor fetish fashion, but the genuine human experience of SM as a living breathing, reality. Her camera peers into the seldom seen hidden lives and loves of her subjects participating vicariously, and viscerally. Her work documents a wide variety of SM activities: floggings, spankings, ponyplay, crossdressing, fisting, piercing, fireplay...as broad a spectrum as human diversity itself. When working, she provides no direction or choreography on her shoots; she watches the scene as it unfolds and captures the pivotal moments on the fly. It is never posed or choreographed. As journalism it is as close to the real sadoerotic experience as you can get without witnessing an SM scene yourself. Her deliberate use of a hard dark border burned around the imagery of her prints creates a sort of keyhole effect, inviting us to share her voyeurism, peeking into private encounters, into hidden worlds.But Nitke is no mere photojournalist. She aims for the *feeling* of SM, capturing beautifully the trancelike languor, the moments of catharsis, of utter connectedness, of blinding sensation, that can occur in SM at its best, where time seems to stretch and spirit energies feel as palpable as heat. She shoots with long exposures that leave ghostly trails and uses unusual infrared films that make skin tones glimmer with an ethereal light. Some of her figures feel more like energy clouds than blocks of solid mass. Her viewfinder tends to go where the rapture is, often seeking out the faces of the submissive partners, sometimes letting the dominants become large anonymous forces of nature. Echoes of religious art are sprinkled throughout: a beautiful dominatrix cradling the blindfolded head of her lover - a fetishized pieta; A male submissive being caned and soaring, tattooed angel wings spreading across his back; Jim Mitchell, master flogger, as a younger, hotter Merlin, his flogger tresses spreading like a energy waves flowing from a magic staff; Bernadette W in rapturous surrender, A contemporary St Thersa in ecstasy. There is even what appears to be a penitent kneeling before a priest (actually a moment of reflection before a shoe shine).This blend of raw documentary subject matter and surreal rendering fuses into an unusual style that is both naturalistic and otherworldly. For folks involved in, curious about, or intrigued by the SM lifestyle, I give "Kiss of Fire" my highest rating. For those who simply love any art with an edge, Nitke is amassing a body of work that ranks with the most powerful passionate contemporary art being made today. You don't need to be kinky to be swept away by Ms. Nitke's visionary spell."Kiss of Fire" contains 70 beautiful duotones and two essays: one by Nitke, and one by esteemed photography critic A.D. Coleman. It also includes a lovely frame by frame commentary by the artist herself, providing - in miniature - the fascinating, intimate, often hilarious slide show, Nitke has been presenting in art forums for years. "Kiss of Fire" is the steamy, provocative, alluring coffee-table-book-to-end-all-coffee table-books. May it send you somewhere sublime.