Anton Fury
When I was about 16, I discovered John's Smoke Shop. I'd never seen anything like this place. Playboy was all right, but this place had all those Men's Magazines from the mid-70's. They weren't in racks, they were stacked on tabletops in rows, all around the room. I didn't know magazines or places like this existed, and here one was, right in the middle of my town.
Of all the magazines; Gent was one of my favorites. Why? Because it was “Home of the D-Cups”! That's the start of the circle in my “Passion of the Boob”. The circle isn't complete for about 30 years.
My love of females started very early. I remember “liking” a girl in Nursery School. I never was into the whole “girls got cooties” thing. I can still recall my girlfriends all through grade, junior high and high school; and that was a long time back.
When I was about 12, I discovered a box, high up on a shelf in my Dad's workshop that contained all his Playboys. From that day on our basement became the clubhouse for me and my buddies.
At about that same time, my mom hired a neighbor girl who was in high school - we'll call her Cindy, to look after my little brother and me while she was at work. This was truly my “awakening” summer. She had a friend that was always around, and for whatever reason, I spent much of my time kissing her. Seems weird now, but it didn't at the time. Shortly after that summer, her friend wound up pregnant and I never saw her again. It wasn't me!
While that wasn't strange enough, Cindy and I spent time playing Strip Poker and Truth or Dare. The one moment I can still picture today is when she dared me to play with her big, and I mean huge, boobs for 2 minutes, on a dare.
I truly believe that these two events set me on a path of boobs. I know, all guys love boobs, but with me, it really became a thing.
In the mid-90's a friend told my wife and I about a club in NYC called The Vault. We had no idea what it was, he just said that it was a wild place.
One Saturday night, we were on the way home from seeing a band. It was pretty early and my wife said,”Hey, why don't we go check out that club in NYC?” I turned the car around, and off we went.
The Vault was down in the Meat Packing District, on the lower west side of NYC; not the nicest place to be after dark. Things like that never deterred us, we were always up for an adventure.
We found the address and the only thing that identified it was a small, I mean tiny, sign that said “The Vault”, at the top of these stairs that led down into the underworld of New York City. There was a big bouncer at the top of the stairs. We asked him if we were in the right place, and he directed us down the stairs.
The cost to get in was $5 for women and $35 for men... odd. We paid and walked into a scene like we had never seen before. We didn't have any idea what to expect, but what we encountered was something we had never, in our wildest dreams, considered. It was wild all right, but it wasn't a sex club... it was a Fetish club, you know whips and chains!
Not that we were into the S&M scene, but we were into crazy, wild adventures, se just walked around, taking it all in.
As soon as we walked in, guys were coming up to my wife, asking her if they could see here nails – at that time she had super long nails on her left hand. One of these guys asked her if they could give her a foot massage. Well, that was all she had to hear. In 2 seconds she found a place to sit and the guy had removed her boots and was going to town on her feet.
From then on, we were at The Vault every Saturday night for years. We never had to pay again after that first time, they liked having us around. We got close to everyone that worked there, as well as all the regulars.
After that first week, they moved from 9th Avenue in the basement, to 10th Avenue with 5 floors of total decadence. Someday I'll write some of those stories. Those were crazy, wild times... and so much fun!
We also started to research the Fetish world. We got books – pre-Internet, got friendly with experienced people and started going to Fetish Events. That's when Master Anton Fury and Mistress Rhiannon were born.
We contacted Nugget magazine and managed to get Rhiannon and I a gig writing a monthly column, called “A Day in the Life”. It featured many of our true adventures and ran for over 10 years.
I got my first camera in 1980, built a darkroom, and started fooling around. About the same time we found The Vault, I was getting more serious with the photography. Right out of the gate, I was getting published, but I was not happy with the images I was producing.
Through a string of misfortunes, I lost all my camera gear, which actually ended up being a good thing. I got enough money from my insurance that I was able to buy all new, much better gear. I purchased a set of professional Dynalite strobe lighting gear.
One day I went to the Dynalite website to look at adding some more equipment. A pop-up popped up advertising “Photo Fantasy Camp with Playboy Photographer, David Mecey”.
After reading the ad, I thought it sounded like what I was looking for. The cost for the 3 day camp was $3000. I immediately sent an email to David Mecey expressing my concerns, which were; “I'm already shooting naked girls. I don't need to pay $3K for that”.
He assured me that it was a camp to learn. The “Fantasy Camp” name was only for marketing. So, I signed up and a couple months later, I was off the Santa Monica, CA.
David was right... when I got to the camp, I could take a picture. When I left, I was a photographer... and I never looked back.
I built and ran a 2500 sq.ft. studio in New Jersey for 14 years where I shot over 300 models. Every year I'd go to Las Vegas in January during AVN to shoot, and also in August during Exotic Dancer. I shot regularly in Florida and also in Chicago and Jamaica. I was the only photographer ever allowed to shoot during the Nudes-A-Poppin' Pageant at The Ponderosa Sun Club, Nudist Camp in Indiana.
In 2000, I was hired at Magna Publishing as their Web Master. For five years I created and managed 14 websites that encompassed their adult magazines: Swank, Velvet, Gent, D-Cup, Leg Sex and more. Each month, my job was to put the entire issue on-line.
At that time the editor of Gent and D-Cup was a guy in London. The problem was; this guy didn't know who the girls in the big boob niche were. Each month, the magazines would come in and he'd have the wrong names with many of the girls that I, as a connoisseur, photographer, and the fact that I was married to one of them, knew were wrong. It drove me crazy.
I started telling the bosses that I'd like to be an editor of one of these mags. The final straw came when an issue came in that had an article about the latest AVN's. There was a full page picture of Alana Starr.
Now, Alana Starr does have a nice big set of tits... be she also has a dick. I brought this to the attention of one of the bosses and the next day I brought in her/his driver's license... I had shot her a couple years earlier.
He said, “Hang on a minute”. Ten minutes later he returned and said, “We're going to give you a shot. We will give you a budget, and you're going to do the Holiday issue of D-Cup.
A few weeks went buy and they changed their minds, telling me they would give me a budget, and I could start my own new magazine.
Rhiannon and I got to work and came up with Cleavage magazine. The problem that I felt these magazines had at the time, was that the photographers had gotten lazy. They were constantly sending in sub-par photo layouts. Band lighting. Bad make-up.
My idea for Cleavage was to feature beautiful, busty women, with Playboy style photography. I also wanted it to be a classier book than what was happening at the time, so I wasn't looking to feature “Lincoln Tunnel” or penetration shots.
The first issue came out in Winter 2004-2005. They ran it as a quarterly book. We did 5 issues. I've always felt that Cleavage was a test to see if I could do the job, because, before that run ended, I was made editor of Gent and D-Cup.
This story started in John's Smoke Shop in Aurora, Illinois and now the circle was complete with me in charge of Gent.
Initially, I had a pretty decent budget to work with, but as the Internet grew, the budget, and magazines in general, decreased. So, after a couple years, I was shooting the mag cover-to-cover and writing pretty much every word.
Ultimately, I also took over Busty Beauties, so I was now the main “Boob” guy in publishing. The only books I didn't do were Score and Juggs.
I created 57 issues of Gent, until the Internet finally killed these titles. The final issue of Gent was February 2011. I put Rhiannon on the cover, which was a very appropriate way to end my tenure.
With magazines ending, essentially, so was my photography career. I had no interest in shooting weddings or kids.
I converted my studio to a full-blown dungeon and began hosting Fetish events. Some nights I'd bring in 100 people. After a couple years, since the warehouse wasn't zoned for “Cabaret”, I had to shut those down. They told us we could get it re-zoned, but truthfully, I was ready to step away and take a break.
So, I retired Anton Fury and went into Internet Marketing, Web Development ans SEO. But things always have a way of returning to your life.
I'm friends on Facebook with one of my favorite models. She has an idea for a “Stripper Academy” to educate new-comers to all facets of the industry. She's been in it for her entire adult life and done all the different jobs associated with it, so she has a lot of knowledge to impart. And she's been successful at it, by making it a business and not a party.
This has prompted me to dust off Anton Fury and get involved to help her realize her vision... which I think is a great one. Not to mention, it's been kind of fun revisiting this long journey I've been on.
