I had a very interesting, and rather amusing situation today. I ended up on a video call with some of the staff of Playboy and 60 models from around the world. It was a bit awkward, but I learned some things from the experience, and probably not what you expect.

Background

Back in January, 2022, a photographer I follow on Instagram started posting about this new social media site that Playboy was starting, called Centerfold. Great name, right? I was intrigued.

In its original form, it felt a lot like an early version of Instagram, only without the censorship or advertisements. Frankly, that sounded pretty amazing to me. I signed up immediately and was approved as one of the early “creators”. It was a new platform, so I knew it would be quiet at first, but the idea of an uncensored social media site for nude photography was (and still is) really exciting to me, and I thought the name recognition and strong brand behind it meant it was likely to succeed at least at some level.

I’ve been posting uncensored versions of my Instagram posts there pretty religiously. As time went on, though, they started adding more features, and the site started veering away from “early Instagram” and more toward “current OnlyFans¹”. The emphasis is clearly on the way model creators make money, and photographer accounts are a lower priority. That didn’t bother me. Most of the newer features they were adding didn’t really benefit me, but they didn’t hurt me, either, so I kept posting. After a while, I did stop cross-promoting Centerfold on my other socials because I wasn’t getting enough crossover followers to make it worth the effort I was putting into it.

The Invitation

About a week ago, Playboy sent me an invitation to a “Playboy Creator Conference Call”. I thought that sounded interesting. I wasn’t sure they had really intended to send it to me, but I signed up anyway. A couple hours later, they cancelled my reserved spot, which made me a little mad. I mean, they had invited me, and then cancelled me without comment or explanation? How rude!

But, it wasn’t just me – they had accidentally cancelled the whole session. A new invitation arrived a little bit later.

A Rough Start

When the time came for the call, I logged in and, as you might imagine, the call was almost all gorgeous models. Just as I was taking it all in… they kicked me out of the call. They didn’t say anything, and I hadn’t said or done anything, so I couldn’t have violated any rules. Nonetheless, I was unceremoniously booted from the call. My guess was they saw this old bearded guy and figured he really didn’t belong.

A smarter man would’ve taken a hint, but I had been invited, dammit, so I was going to join, just as a matter of principle. So, I called back in, and they let me stay this time, though they ignored me, didn’t answer my questions, or even acknowledge anything I said or did.

The Presentation

After some introductions, the staff from Playboy began their pitch. As I was expecting by this point, it was all about how model creators could increase their engagement and earning. They also presented a couple of promotional opportunities to work with Playboy that they didn’t explicitly say was for models only, but it was pretty clear they were for models only. There really wasn’t a lot of information that was at all helpful to a photographer on the platform, and my questions and comments were ignored, even my question about how I could improve engagement for the Centerfold models I’ve collaborated with (there’s currently no way to tag or mention another creator). Hell, they didn’t even send me the chat transcript they said they were going to send to all participants. It became pretty clear they had no use for me and didn’t really want me there.

So, it was a frustrating waste of time?

Actually, no. I’m really glad I called in despite the annoyances and less-than-welcoming reception.

It Wasn’t About Me… and that’s Okay

Despite everything, I was honestly really impressed with the Playboy staff. First, they were all women. Every single one. And they all seemed genuinely excited to be creating a platform focused on helping (mostly women) creators make money.

Playboy was my first exposure to nude photography way back in the late ’70s, so it’ll always have a special place in my heart. But even from a fairly early age, I recognized that the “Playboy Lifestyle” the magazine promoted was deeply problematic. Everything about the magazine was mired in patriarchal arrogance. Of course, I wasn’t about to let any of that interfere with my appreciation for their pictures of naked women.

But, that problematic Playboy I grew up with? That’s not the Playboy I witnessed on that call. Not remotely. What I saw was a company led by women and focused on enabling women to profit from their own beauty and sexuality, which is pretty much the opposite of the old Playboy where men profited off the beauty and sexuality of women. Playboy is still a for-profit company, and much of their consumer base is made up of men, so I don’t want to idealize what they’re doing too much, but… it was honestly nice to see. I loved the clear focus and genuine enthusiasm from both the staff and the creators.

The Verdict

Although I plan to keep posting to Centerfold, the jury is still out as to whether it will become a good platform for photographers. It lacks tools for cross-promotion, has no mechanism for encouraging public discussions, and you only get one line of text to describe your image. As a photographer, people don’t come to my social media accounts primarily to interact with me, at least, not in the way they do when they come to a model’s account. They come to mine to see the pictures of the various models I’ve shot and to hear behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the model or the shoot. It’s a very different dynamic, and it’s a dynamic that Centerfold isn’t building tools to support.

But, for model creators, it’s shaping up to be a terrific platform. From what I’ve seen, it’s a far better choice for many people currently using OnlyFans or Fansly, and I expect it to keep getting better.

I’m excited to see where they take the platform, even though they appear to be taking it in a direction that doesn’t benefit me that much, personally.

1 – Just to be clear, Centerfold doesn’t look or feel like OnlyFans. It’s not a copy or a clone, but development does seem to be driven by a similar motivation.

You may noticed that things have changed a little bit around here. I’ve migrated my website to a different software platform that will allow me to do more than I could with the old site, including set up a shop to sell digital images, prints, and merchandise.

I chose not to migrate every post from the old blog, but I did bring over many of the tutorials and other long-form articles that seemed like they might continue to be of interest. I was able to automate moving my old blog posts to this new site, but I do need to do a little work to get old posts clean up and published, so additional older posts may pop up now and again as I have time to go through them.

Banner image by Markus Spiske from Unsplash.

Since getting back into photography, I haven’t spent a huge amount time or effort on getting more followers on social media. As a result, until recently, my follower counts have stayed pretty modest. I am, however, slowly approaching an important milestone. On Instagram, I should hit 10,000 followers sometime in the next month if all goes well. This milestone is important because it opens up a bunch of new creator tools and features, such as the ability to post links in stories, so I’m pretty excited about getting there.

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing some kind of giveaway for quite a while, and this seemed like a good opportunity to finally do it. I’ve come up with — and discarded — several ideas. Most involved raffling off different types of mounted prints or producing some kind of publication. But with what’s going on with shipping and logistics right now, larger items are very expensive to ship and are much more prone to getting damaged or lost than in times past. The reality is that I could only afford to do gifts like those for a couple of people.

I really want to do something unique but also inexpensive enough that I can afford to send them to quite a few people. Ideally, it should be something that’s kind of silly and fun, too.

I was recently at the game and comic store where one of my kids works. I noticed that they sell mystery packs of dice at the main counter. They’re sealed, opaque mylar bag with a set of gaming dice inside. You know they’re dice, but you don’t know the color, the style, or whether they’re opaque, translucent, or transparent until you open the bag. These bags are so popular that they have trouble keeping them in stock. I even bought one myself, even though I had absolutely no need for any more dice.

As I walked around the store, I noticed that there were several other types of items sold in similar ways: miniatures, cards, artwork, and even comics. I think they’re popular for the same reason that collectible card games are. Sure, you’re buying cards, dice, miniatures, or whatever, but you’re also buying a moment of excitement and anticipation at the possibility of getting something you really like or something rare or unusual.

I’ve been thinking about ways to make that idea work as a giveaway. I’ve been prototyping sealed packages of 3×4 archival photographs. Each pack has four uncensored prints of my images, mostly shots that I’ve posted (censored) to Instagram over the years. Several of the photos, however, aren’t available online and won’t ever be.

I realized pretty quickly that I can make and ship these pretty inexpensively, so I can afford to give away a bunch of them, rather than having to choose just a couple people, so I’m moving forward with making them in anticipation of crossing over 10k.

Here’s a bit about how I’m making them.

Packaging

The first order of business was to find some kind of packaging I could use for the mystery packs. The only real requirements I had is that the packages need to be sealable and that you can’t tell what’s inside once they’re sealed. Mystery bags don’t need to be fancy. I’ve seen them created using paper bags with black sharpie writing on them, but I didn’t want to go quite that DIY for this.

The mystery bags of dice come in heat-sealed mylar zip bags. They look nice, so that seemed like a possible contender if it wasn’t too expensive. Turns out: it isn’t.

Heat-seal mylar bags are a surprisingly inexpensive form of packaging that can look pretty professional. You can find decent heat sealers for about $25 on Amazon, like this one that I bought:

You could also use something like a Foodsaver to seal the bags if you happen to already have one of those in your kitchen.  The individual bags are also fairly cheap. I ordered a sampling of different bags that seemed like they might work, and they ranged from about 5¢ to about 15¢ each in small quantities, depending on style and size.

After creating several prototype packs using different options, I settled on these 15cm×10cm bags which cost 7¢ each. They fit the prints well. They’re not snug, but also don’t have too much extra space, either. The prints are easy to put in, and to take out after opening. They’re fully opaque, so you can’t see what’s inside, and once sealed, the only way to find out what’s inside is to tear it open.

Creating an Insert

Some of the bag options I played with had a clear front panel, so I designed an insert to go inside those to act as a label and to obscure wht prints behind it. I made the inserts in Affinity Publisher (a really good, but very affordable desktop publishing program). Unlike the prints, which are going to be archival and high-quality, I just printed these 4-up on my color laser printer. Even though I eventually settled on a fully opaque bag, I decided to keep the inserts.

Since my laser printer can print double-sided, I also wrote a little thank-you note for the back that has details about the edition and links to all of my photography-related social media accounts.

Printing Labels

For the exterior label, I went looking for pre-cut laser printer labels that are not quite as big as the 10cm × 15cm bags. The best option I found were these labels that print 6-up. I kept the labels fairly simple and graphic. After a few rounds of experimenting, I settled on this design.

Making the Prints

If you’ve followed this blog at all, you know I love  printing. I currently use a Canon PIXMA PRO-100 printer with archival dyes and paper. It’ll do borderless prints up to 13″x19″, but I initially decided to do these prints 4-up on letter-size paper. Photo paper gets exponentially more expensive as you move to larger sizes so, while it would be more convenient to be able to print a whole bunch of 3×4 prints on a couple of 13″x19″ sheets, it ended up being considerably more cost-effective to print on smaller sheets of paper. The smaller paper is also easier to work with when cutting out the prints.

This worked well, but still involved a lot of cutting, which I wasn’t thrilled about, since I’m creating four sets of 60 prints, and this approach requires 6 separate cuts per sheet of four images. I realized that I have a lot of 4×6 archival photo paper and that two 3×4 prints exactly fit on one 4×6 sheet of paper. Since my printer can do borderless 4×6 printing, that means I only have to make one cut for every two prints. That’s a lot less cutting, so moving to 4×6 paper was a no-brainer.

Here’s what the finished packs look like:

All in, these cost me less than 60¢ to make each pack. The four 3×4 prints cost me about 12¢ each to make (for a total of 40¢ per pack), the packaging costs about 7¢ per, and the label adds maybe another couple of cents.  That doesn’t include my time or the cost of the heat sealer, though. Because these packs are small and light, I can send them using first class mail for $0.58 or $1.30 international. That’s pretty affordable for a physical giveaway.

My plan is to create 45 packs to give to Instagram followers on a first-come-first-served basis once I reach 10k followers. I’m not planning to sell any packs, nor am I planning to re-print the edition. I may create additional series when I hit other milestones (25k maybe?), and I’m contemplating creating a single “XL” version of the set made up of  larger prints, but haven’t made a decision about that yet.

Release Date

I have no release date yet. I won’t send out any mystery bags until I have more than 10k followers on Instagram. Most likely, I will start sending them out about a week or two after crossing over, but it will depend on what’s going on in my life when I reach the milestone. I have a trip planned toward the end of the month, so if I cross over while I’m out of town, it will be a little while before I’m able to start sending them out.

Getting a Mystery Pack

Follow me on Instagram if you’re interested in getting one of the mystery packs. I will announce how to sign up to get them over there, on a first-come-first-served basis. They will be completely free, and there will only be three requirements to get one:

• You must be following me when I reach 10k. The 10,001st follower will have to wait for the next milestone.
• You must be over the age of 18 and must also be a legal adult where you live if the age of majority there is higher than 18.
• You must not live in somewhere where censorship laws make fully nude photographs illegal to own or to import.

Please don’t DM me about getting a pack before I cross 10k followers. I’m not accepting sign-ups until I’ve gotten there.