Exclusive AMA (Ask me Anything) with MetArt

[rashidnz]

Hello

So how about mainstream models or wannabe celebrities? Has Met Art any plans to offer some glamour shoot to say some of the wannabes?
for those wanting to shed thei Disney Image ..etc
Thanks

 

[djtiesto1969]

As a potential subscriber to METart and photographer myself I have a couple of questions:

1. Were is METart based giving all places were models and photographers coming from?

2. Did you ever consider to bring your beautyfull models in to contact with Photographers who subscribed to METart, giving them
a chance to work with such beautyfull girls (f.e. coordinated by a pro photographer or someone from METart)? Learning more from the pro's will me nice

Ps: as a non-subscriber METart already gives me lot of Inspiration for my Photography. So subscribing is just a matter of time.... ;-)

 

[Petra]

Let's see, if I had never taken this position, I would *probably* still be managing some online division of Playboy. OR I might be the greeter at Walmart. I really love my current position and quite honestly love being a part of the MetArt family...I have no plans to change direction any time soon but if I am forced to think of what I would do next, I imagine I would stay in this industry in some sort of marketing or executive role. OR I might be the greeter at Walmart.

If you ended up as a Walmart greeter, how long would it take for you to start beating people with your roll of smiley face stickers??

 

[Met-Art]

Also, Met-Art seemingly doesn't have very many American models. Is your home base mostly Europe namely Eastern Europe? You seem to find alot of Russian, Croatian, Hungarian, and Polish models. Is it that the market over there for this type of work is just more accessible or is that the look that you cater to? Are American women considered too "porn like" for the Met Art site as opposed to some of your other website affiliates? I can think of a number of great American models that would be great for a set with any of a number of your Met-Art contributing photographers.

Thanks for all the quality over the years. I wish the Met Art and it's affiliates continued success.

Our home base is actually in Los Angeles but by far the majority of our models are Eastern European - yes, there is a huge market there for softcore photography models and the women possess a certain set of features and physique that the MetArt 'look' was founded upon. American women look different from the majority of our MetArt models - regionally, globally people just have different features. We don't exclude American models from MetArt, we just have more difficulty finding the ones that we feel fit the MetArt criteria more so than with Eastern European women. You'll find that on SexArt for example, we have many more American models - but the site is different and is intended to be so. I'm curious...can you show me a few of the American models you have in mind for MetArt? And thank you for the well wishes!!

I was wondering where Met-Art is going with your network of sites? You've got quite an interesting collection, with Holly Randall, ALS Scan (my favorite site on the internet), Viv Thomas, Michael Ninn, etc. How large and eclectic a network are you all aiming for? What should we be anticipating in terms of your network?

I mentioned in a previous response that the network has grown because of our desire to work with talented artists with similar ideals while bringing a variation of content into the Network. We want to have a wide variety of content offerings for our members to choose from, all in one place, with the knowledge that they will have the very best experience in every aspect - content quality, customer service, user interface, fair pricing. We are not trying to become the largest network but we do want to be the very best. You can expect more sites to join us soon and those will offer even more niches and choices to fully round out our network offerings. Very glad to hear that you love ALS Scan - we do too!

Gah, I don't want to hog up all the questions/bandwidth, but one doesn't get this opportunity too often... so, what the hell, two more questions of a more personal/philosophical nature:

1. Have you told your family/friends about working in online porn/erotica? If so, was it difficult to tell them and what did they think?

2. What do you say to critics of erotica/porn that say it's anti-feminist and reinforces misogynistic attitudes such as men thinking it's OK to objectify women?

My immediate family and close friends know that I work in this industry...it was difficult to tell some of them and with the majority of them, my career is not something we discuss regularly or openly. With some, my very closest friends, they are very supportive, nonjudgmental, and often intrigued about my line of work.

I'll come back to #2...excellent question!

 

[Met-Art]

View attachment 301591

Sooo disturbing...I can never look at one of those angels the same again now. LOL

 

[Met-Art]

Solrage, Sevrin, Ovidius - thanks for your discussion and feedback on the rating system...it's just this type of information that allows us to review our processes and determine methods that work best for our members. We will definitely review your comments and discuss internally as there is always room for improvement.

Somewhat personal question for Jill

How do/how have the guys in your life (boyfriend(s)/husband/whatever) reacted to what you do for a living? Have any of them had a reaction one way or another about it?

I've never had a man in my life that wasn't supportive of my career and I've never hidden it from them in any way. The biggest issue I face is probably something couples face in any relationship, despite the line of work they are in - I struggle with work/personal life balance as I enjoy my work very much (and it often doesn't feel like 'work' in the traditional way to me) and I tend to work a great deal.

 

[Met-Art]

dou yo have any work with little wheeled boards
do you have a favorite lip color that you like on other women

I have to say, I have never done any work with little wheeled boards. Not exactly sure what this is referring to, lol.

I like natural lips on myself and other women...clear gloss is my favorite.

Do you hire?

Yes we do! We're always looking for great new talent to join our team in various positions from programming to marketing to design and customer service.

 

[Met-Art]

Alex, CTO here:

I do not like that system with assigning numbers. Since one person might rate a girl as a 5 whereas another, for the same perceived "value", would assign a 7, you don't get either a ratio or a nominal scale that way. It only works for one individual's preferences. Never, ever, try to use a ratio scale to measure something that is inherently non-parametric. I would prefer to allow the users to rank the girls against each other by asking them if one set is better than another, or to distribute 100 points between the models; that way you will soon be able to rank the models/photographers/scenes on an ordinal scale.

I love this line of thinking. You're right that 1 to 10 is arbitrary and not a good representation.

The biggest issue we'd have is that changing the top model list, as you see, is a very controversial move no matter how it changes. I can't imagine how we'd scrap the current rating system and move to something non-parametric when just fixing our current system took literally months of "rolling back" the adjustments so the list didn't change abruptly. We'd probably have to come up with another "top" page that used the new system while keeping the old in place. That is the issue you get with a site so old and with so many members invested in the lists.

Not too long ago we did release another photographer ranking page with that same idea in mind -- we felt the photographer rankings weren't representative so we calculate a second list now that uses the gallery rankings instead of the direct photographer rankings:

http://guests.met-art.com/photographers/popular/

...
Anyway, none of these things will affect *my* use of the site. I'm not going to point out this model or that who should be dropped from that list either, because that would be rude. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the current system is broken.

Possibly but I would argue that it was more broken before when we weren't counting low votes as not every vote was counted.

...
As sevrin said/suggested, I have to wonder how many of our older favorites (Jenya D, Iveta B, Ariel, Anna AJ, Altea B, Sofi A... just to name a few) would only have have done maybe half the sets they've done if they'd been under the new system, considering that now they're not even in the Top 150.

I'll give you my personal opinion of why some of the MetArt "greats" dropped. I think for the months and months that some girls sat at #1, they were the recipient of low votes from members who didn't like them specifically because they were at #1. These low votes were not counted and the girls at #1 received an inordinate amount of them. Now that we count them, they've dropped. I will look into see if we can filter these "spiteful" low votes out.

 

[solrage]

Solrage, Sevrin, Ovidius - thanks for your discussion and feedback on the rating system...it's just this type of information that allows us to review our processes and determine methods that work best for our members. We will definitely review your comments and discuss internally as there is always room for improvement.

I want to make one more suggestion regarding the ratings system; I don't know if this would be doable, but it might be interesting to try and incorporate a feature where users can rank, say, their own top 10, 20 50, 100, etc. models. As for why:

I'll give you my personal opinion of why some of the MetArt "greats" dropped. I think for the months and months that some girls sat at #1, they were the recipient of low votes from members who didn't like them specifically because they were at #1. These low votes were not counted and the girls at #1 received an inordinate amount of them. Now that we count them, they've dropped. I will look into see if we can filter these "spiteful" low votes out.

See, this is what I was leery of as well. It's what you might call "backlash voting" where top models are given "1s" solely because some users despise them being ranked so highly. I see this all the time on IMDb where new movies come out, receive a rash of "10s," and then the backlash starts and it receives a rash of "1s" from users who are rating more against the hype than they are rating the movie itself. That's what I think happened with the MA rankings. I don't think any sane human being is going to give Iveta B (eg) a "1" if you showed them a gallery in isolation. However, tell them that she's a #1 ranked model, and suddenly you'll see such a backlash of 1s. It's very unfair to the models, and to those users who don't "backlash rate," or try to polarize their votes (10s to their favorites, 1s to the others) to have the maximum affect on the rankings.

To go back to my "Top 10/20/50/etc." model rankings by individual users, one benefit of that system is that it avoids the whole backlash/polarizing problem. Users get to say who their favorites are with a nice system that goes beyond the 1-10 ratings scale because it actually would allow them to say which of their 10s (and maybe 9s, depending on how far the rankings went) are their top favorites. I actually got this idea from the trend right now in the world of film where cinephiles, critics, etc. make such lists of their favorite films/filmmakers that generate a ton of interesting discussion and debate as well as awareness (one only has to look at the ubiquity of lists like those from AFI, Sight and Sound, and now Theyshootpictures in online discussions). People seem to love making such lists, and for a site with such devoted fans as MA, I bet you'd have a lot of people interested in contributing their own.

 

[solrage]

I mentioned in a previous response that the network has grown because of our desire to work with talented artists with similar ideals while bringing a variation of content into the Network.

I mentioned this on one of the recent blog posts on SexArt that asked users for suggestions of what content they'd like to see, but I'll mention it again here just to get the word out a bit more: outside of MA/SA, the best erotic/pornographic work I've seen in recent years are the last two feature films by a director named Graham Travis. His Portrait of a Call Girl and Wasteland are really my ideal for what quality, feature length porn/erotica would be. I know SexArt hasn't dipped into the world of feature length hardcore yet (Kamikaze Love being sofcore), and I don't know if anyone in the MA Network is familiar with his work, but it would be awesome if you could either work with him, or take some inspiration from his work for any possible/potential feature length narrative films in the future.

My immediate family and close friends know that I work in this industry...it was difficult to tell some of them and with the majority of them, my career is not something we discuss regularly or openly. With some, my very closest friends, they are very supportive, nonjudgmental, and often intrigued about my line of work.

I'll come back to #2...excellent question!

Thanks for the response. I've often wondered what I'd say to my family if I went into such a business (I come from a very conservative background, though I'm more a liberal). As much as one might feel that there's nothing wrong/immoral about erotica and pornography (I very much view it as I do all art, and that's as a beautiful expression of life), it's often hard to convey that feeling to people who are both close to you and whom you know don't share the same view. It's tricky stuff, I can imagine.

I look forward to your answer to #2, since I've found myself in more than one of those debates! (you can probably guess which side I took! ).

 

[Met-Art]

Alex, CTO here:

To go back to my "Top 10/20/50/etc." model rankings by individual users, one benefit of that system is that it avoids the whole backlash/polarizing problem. Users get to say who their favorites are with a nice system that goes beyond the 1-10 ratings scale because it actually would allow them to say which of their 10s (and maybe 9s, depending on how far the rankings went) are their top favorites. I actually got this idea from the trend right now in the world of film where cinephiles, critics, etc. make such lists of their favorite films/filmmakers that generate a ton of interesting discussion and debate as well as awareness (one only has to look at the ubiquity of lists like those from AFI, Sight and Sound, and now Theyshootpictures in online discussions). People seem to love making such lists, and for a site with such devoted fans as MA, I bet you'd have a lot of people interested in contributing their own.

This is a great idea and we're discussing it.

I mentioned this on one of the recent blog posts on SexArt that asked users for suggestions of what content they'd like to see, but I'll mention it again here just to get the word out a bit more: outside of MA/SA, the best erotic/pornographic work I've seen in recent years are the last two feature films by a director named Graham Travis. His Portrait of a Call Girl and Wasteland are really my ideal for what quality, feature length porn/erotica would be. I know SexArt hasn't dipped into the world of feature length hardcore yet (Kamikaze Love being sofcore), and I don't know if anyone in the MA Network is familiar with his work, but it would be awesome if you could either work with him, or take some inspiration from his work for any possible/potential feature length narrative films in the future.

I've passed this on to the SexArt art direction team.

 

[welshman599]

Hi Jill; thanks for taking questions from fans of Met Art's family. One of my all-time favourite models is Adriana Malkova, and your sites certainly aided in her popularity. Although I have heard she is officially retired, I keep seeing some newer shoots by photographers such as donsoso, and for sites like Daphoz. Any chance of new shoots for your group with her?

- - - Updated - - -

 

[Met-Art]

Jill - As a potential customer, what direction do you think MetArt needs to take in the next 1-3 years that makes your suite of sites more appealing to sign up for versus the thousands of sites currently out there?

MetArt will continue to fill out our network with a variety of porn niches, the idea being to offer exceptional content that meets the desires of a wide variety of consumers - note, I said 'exceptional' because we have no desire to add sub par content or just throw sites together haphazardly.

We believe that there are varius types of consumers and while the types of content vary across the sites in our network, we strive to keep the customer experience exceptional and that begins from the tour, continues into our members areas and extends to our additional products like cams.

We aim to appeal to consumers through quality, customer service, fair pricing (giving you your money's worth +++) and evolving interface that allows you to easily navigate, search, save favorites, interact, manage your accounts and more.

What does excite you of erotic photography?

This is a tough question - I love to see beautiful women celebrated and captured in one-of-a-kind moments on film.

While nudity is the main aim of MetArt, sexy clothing and accessories can really create a stunning look. Do you get to choose what shoes, underwear jewelery etc you wear?

There is a mixture of wardrobe provided by the models and items they bring or wear into the shoot.

 

[Met-Art]

What has brought Met-Art from being the best in soft-core porn, to being the best in both hardcore and soft-core?

Wow, what a huge compliment! Thank you!

During the last few months MetArt has made a bold move to become "Another" adult-content cluster.

MetArt being a site where high quality is a common standard and having a well stablished market image,

well earned by fifteen-plus years of meticulous work; My question is: What's the point of intermixing

Met with some other old sites that are a world apart from the quality and image that we were use to?.

I, being myself a MetArt active member, kind of dislike that heterogeneous mixture of everything under

the same brand name.(and the downloading quality has suffer also, by the way).
I can't wait to read your thoughts on this issue, thanks beforehand.

I think I have touched on these questions in a few previous responses but Arazar, to answer your question, our intention is not to mix the sites, we are working to extend our offerings and create a complete network with sites and content from individuals we view as extremely talented. We do have very high quality standards, though to be fair, resolution quality of photo content has evolved greatly and some of these sites - ALS Scan for example - has photo content more than a decade old and the original photo quality isn't comparable to the photo content quality being released on ALS Scan now. There are some consumers who compare the types of content on Michael Ninn with the type of content on MetArt and view those as different qualities, but they are completely different types of content altogether and this makes quality in that sense a bit difficult to define and more of an abstract consumer opinion.

I'd like to find out what sort of downloading issue you are having so we can address this. Can you explain more or send me an email to jill@metart.com? Thanks and I hope I answered your question.

If you become a greeter at a Walmart near my location, expect to be seeing me there regularly.

Again, I already have a monthly Sex-Art membership, but I'm a sucker for games, so I'll take a shot: Iveta B?

LOL, I'm sure I'd look forward to seeing you each time. Not Iveta B!!! Great guess though!

 

[Met-Art]

Uhm now I NEED to see a faceshot of her!!!

Why weren't you comfy? You have nice well-kept feet.



Haha you're so silly, now you surely want to hear things like "oh no you're super hot".

Seriously I think with a good met-art-y makeup you could easily pose for them yourself. It would be popular, but not like a freak show.



Ha, I would have said that, too. She's my all-time favorite!

She's a very lovely lady who will have to remain anonymous! I'm most comfortable in flip-flops or barefoot so wearing heels is never truly comfortable for me.

The Met-Art-y make up thing made me laugh - it's like putting lipstick on a pig....but I appreciate the compliment

 

[Met-Art]

Quote Originally Posted by Met-Art View Post

Who knows which MetArt model held the #1 rank for the longest amount of time?

I'm guess Jenya D

Met Art has always worked with both male and female photographers. Considering your definition of erotism, as a way to revere the female (by the way, only female?) form and revealing its beauty from within, do you think there's a difference between the work of male and female photographers?

I'm guessing Andrea was the girl who was number 1 the longest.

My definition of erotica/erotic art was based on the MetArt concept which reveres women only as I felt that was what the question was asking me to define. I believe there is a difference in the work of EACH photographer and that it's standard for individual photographers to have a specialty, focus or unique talent they showcase in their work.

I have difficulty choosing between my 10s, but my personal rankings would probably be:

1. Iveta B
2. Jenya D
3. Ariel Piper Fawn
4. Eufrat A
(These were the models responsible for hooking me as a member)

5. Mia Sollis
6. Loreen A
7. Iga A
8. Nikky Case
9. Sofi A
10. Natalia A
11. Alisa G
12. Nina A
13. Indiana A
14. Altea B
15. Ulya I
16. Catherine A
17. Peach A
18. Natalia B
19. Kisa A
20. Lidiya A

These would've been my second and third guesses, though I thought perhaps Andrea C was before there was a ranking system (was there always a ranking system?) as I didn't notice a "Top 10" logo on any of her sets. Jenya D would've been my second guess, though.

All great guesses for #1 model for the longest time, but keep trying! Nobody has gotten it yet!

 

[Met-Art]

I love your style of shooting but do you ever shoot or feature any 'curvier' girls?

Here are a few great examples of our MetArt type 'curvier' girls:

http://guests.met-art.com/model/mila-m/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/jenya-d/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/violla-a/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/lucy-c/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/vanda-b/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/elsa-a/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/suzanna-a/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/millis-a/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/pavla-a/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/conny-carter/
http://guests.met-art.com/model/lana-i/

 

[Met-Art]

If you ended up as a Walmart greeter, how long would it take for you to start beating people with your roll of smiley face stickers??

But I'm SOOO Patient! (I'd give it a full 5 minutes)

 

[welshman599]

All great guesses for #1 model for the longest time, but keep trying! Nobody has gotten it yet!

Just a random guess but would it be Adriana Malkova?

 

[rashidnz]

Hello
did my question get missed?


Would love to see some young just legal Celeb get the Met Art Glamour Gallery...