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Hello! I’m a photographer, rope-bondage artist, and educator living and working in central Virginia. Thanks for checking out my site!

MY WORK

Photography and rope, not necessarily in that order

My style of photography falls broadly in the “environmental portraiture” category, meaning I enjoy creating images of people in interesting locations. My work could also be categorized as fashion/glamour, high-concept, performance, fine-art nude, or rope/fetish.

ABOUT ME

Artist and educator, but let's not be too serious

I take the safety and respect of the people I work with very seriously, but I'm here to have fun, work with interesting people, and try to make some compelling images. If you have questions, requests, or might want to work together in some way, please contact me!

Get in Touch!

A little more of my story …

I started practicing photography as a teenager. At that time, the majority of the images I took were landscape and travel shots—by which I mean, my backyard and neighborhood. In college, I bought a used Nikon N8008s and started making actual travel and landscape images. For most of that time, I tried hard to keep people out of my shots. It wasn’t until I got my first digital SLR and started trying to capture street and candid lifestyle shots that I added people to my images. And so, I was slow to come to the portrait side of photography, and that landscape/travel legacy still tends to inform how I shoot people, including my erotic work. If I had to choose one phrase to sum up the type of photography I share on this site, it would be “environmental portraiture with a focus on performance, fetish, and fine-art nude.”

In early 2012, I discovered rope bondage art and was immediately drawn to the mix of technical skill in the ties, artistry in the body positioning and lines, and cooperative nature of tying. I think of it as performance art, and I use my camera to try to capture some aspects of the beauty I find in it. My primary interest is in Japanese-inspired rope art, though I learn from as wide a range as I can and incorporate freely if it appeals to my aesthetic or makes practical sense to me. I’ve learned from a wide range of experienced practitioners on both sides of the rope, founded and help run RVA Rope from 2013 to 2019, and founded Rope Study in 2016. I’m happy to provide more details about my study and practice to those interested in working with me.

On this site, I share collections of my images and discuss my photography practice and the rope-art that I incorporate into many of my images. I hope you enjoy the photography and posts that I share here. If you do, please feel free to share my images (with attribution), leave a comment here or on social media, or send a message.

If you might be interested in working or studying together in some way, you can find more information about that in the “Working Together” section of this site.

About the Name …

Ma’iitsoh Yazhi is an old nickname given to me many years ago. It’s Navajo for “little wolf.” (For the nerdy or curious, it’s pronounced: mɑːʔiːtsoʊ / jɑːʒiː). I worked out on the Navajo reservation for a couple of summers, and the nickname was given to me by one of the elders.

We were gathering wood and stones for a sweat ceremony later that day along the side of a small hill. When I returned with an arm full of wood, the elder told me, between his chuckles, in an English / Navajo mix: “You running around up there. Look like ma’iitsoh yazhi.” I didn’t get the translation until later, and by then, the nickname had stuck.

But you can also just call me Alex!