Werewolf Pinup

A few weeks ago, my friend Emily and I decided to continue my supernatural pinups series and attempt a werewolf.  I've been wanting to try this for awhile, and we were bored, so it was a great idea.  Now, I've never made a werewolf before.  Zombies, yes.  Vampires, yes.  Werewolves?  A little trickier, especially to create a sexy female one in half-were form.  The makeup took a few hours, especially since we had to attach fake hair (which I've never used before) to Emily's chest.  It was definitely a learning experience!


We did some studio shots and some in the kitchen.  They turned out fairly decent, in my opinion, what do you guys think?

Then the crazed and hungry were-model tried to eat my cat!!

We might want to try this shoot out again at some point (with someone who can do better makeup), but it was definitely fun!

Pin-up - Brandi Woodhull

I've been meaning to write this blog for awhile now, but I wanted to finish the pictures first.  Ever since we first met, Brandi and I have been discussing doing a pin-up shoot.  6 or 7 months later, we finally got around to it.  Hair and makeup was done by the lovely Kaleigh, and I shot these in studio using my softbox.  It was insanely hot during our shoot because my air conditioner is broken, but trade is a wonderful thing, and Brandi, who is a roofer, brought me an extra window unit air conditioner she had and installed it as payment.  MY HOUSE IS NO LONGER 120 DEGREES!!!  I love the barter system.

I stole a chair from The Fallout Shelter...it's a nice vintage-y looking prop.

This black and white with the classic pose is my favorite from our set without a doubt!

*mwah* Ta-ta, dah-lings!

Vampire pinup

I did have this big long awesome introductory paragraph about vampire pinups, and my sister Christy and her friend Kelsey, but my computer is currently in the living room and was plugged into the same outlet as the light.  Then Dad turned off the light switch and computer with it.  So, basically, Kels wanted to model for me and I said yes because I adore her and so we decided on vampire pinup to continue with what I started with the zombie one a while back.  (http://elena-dee.blogspot.com/2010/02/alien-bees-and-zombie-pinups.html)

The girls did their own makeup and I helped apply the blood and did Christy's bite wound.  We kinda cheated, and instead of making the whole thing myself, I just latexed on a wound I'd bought at the store ages ago and had never used.  Added some blood to it though, made it a little stickier.  And, of course, the blood pouring down her neck.  Kels had to put some of the fake blood in her mouth to spit out over herself, which is pretty gross.  I've done it myself.  She had a good time putting it all over her arms though, and smearing it on her face.  I rolled out the bloodied part of my white backdrop, put MORE blood on it, set up my Alien Bee and we started shooting.

Most of the shoot involved both girls, which was a bit difficult.  Pinup is very posed and it's difficult to get the right amount of leg with two people interacting.  My first (and currently only) finished shot, the one I adore and love and Cryss says looks Joshua Hoffine-ish (horror photographer extraordinaire, look him up!), isn't all that pin-up-y.

But it's AMAZING, so that's ok.


We did others that look more like traditional pinup, I just haven't finished them yet.  Rough files below.  As you can see, the backgrounds are going to take some time to fix in Photoshop.  Both of these images are started, I just haven't gotten the backdrops looking the way I want them too yet.  Gonna have to buy something bigger soon!

Since this was Kels' shoot, I photographed her alone near the end, just being a pretty vampire girl.

Tia

Yesterday I saw two high school friends for the first time in nearly 5 years.  Tia came over to model for me - she's just starting out but does pretty awesomely already - and Adele, who was doing her makeup.  Adele and I rode the same bus in high school, and Tia was president of the anime club/prom queen.

After Adele finished Tia's makeup, she put on my curly black wig and this super cute little red riding hood-esque dress, and we did took photos using natural light (occasionally filled with my beauty dish topped speedlight) and this derelict white wicker couch that's on my back porch.  Oh, it's ugly and falling apart, but she rocked it for sure.

Then we went inside, and Tia changed her clothes and wig and because we were doing pinup and my kitchen hasn't been renovated since the 50s, Adele suggested we try something with my oven.  Which is pastel pink.  So I cleared everything off the top and away from the sides, moved my Alien Bee (softbox!!) and started shooting.  Angry Johnny, my year-old kitty, wanted in on the action, so I put her on top of the oven and took a couple minutes to convince her that she wanted to join Tia in seeing what was going on inside.  I adore this picture so freaking much.

Then we turned around and Tia got in front of the black backdrop.  I had her side lit with my softbox, and we'd grabbed a couple props, a chair, a telephone and a lipstick.  She raised the lipstick, looked into the light and I took a couple shots.  Eh.  It was pretty, but not WOW.  Then she relaxed for a second, turning slightly to something Adele had said.  THAT was the shot.  I actually did some post for this, because her face and hand were perfect, but her shirt looked weirdly poofy in that one, so I spent a while in Photoshop putting a shirt from an earlier shot.  It was kind of tough because they weren't lined up exactly and her arms and neck were different.  I think I may need to go back in and edit a little more, but am pretty pleased with the result.

And now I'm going to scout a church for the wedding I'm photographing tomorrow.

Pinup - A new obsession?

So a couple weeks after I did the zombie pinup thing that was mentioned in the last post, my sister's friend called me. This worried me, honestly, because you can never know what Dani is up to. Turns out she was calling on behalf of a friend - Becka - who was starting out modeling and was very interested in pinup. Of course I agreed to shoot her!

Quick description of Becka - punk/goth kinda chick with black hair, multiple tattoos and a lip piercing. She's 18 and a senior at a Catholic high school. I adored her instantly.

I set up the black backdrop in the kitchen (my ghetto studio is super ghetto but totally works) with the Alien Bee and softbox and once we got Becka's hair properly fauxhawked did a couple test shots. I also made Kevin, who was playing assistant, go get a bar chair because it worked beautifully with the outfit we'd come up with. My lovely model wasn't too experienced, so I was giving her some posing tips and she seemed to really take this elegant one:



Yeah, I adore that portrait. It's so....classic, but modernly so. Anyway, outside for a smoke break for everyone but me. Now, outside is my back porch is the roof of a bowling alley. And I have this thing for cigarettes.  I may not smoke them, but I love the way they look and I love my roof, so of course we had to do a couple shots with the cig and some with the beautiful sky we had that day as background.

Went back inside, changed our backdrop to white and her outfit, and started some more pin-up like pin-ups!  I had printed out a bunch of pose examples, so we studied those and got to work.  The softbox is amazing for this sort of thing, let me just say.  I am SO glad I bought it.  Going to get another at some point!  Anyway, she had this cute leopard print outfit she wanted, so we did THE pin-up pose, as I call it, with that and then ended up with a sporty sort of look.  Pointing the Alien Bee down on a sitting/laying subject has such amazing light, it's just all around and lovely.

 

I really do need a new white backdrop though, as mine is paper and dirty and, after the zombie shoot, covered in fake blood.  It takes a ridiculous amount of post to make it look clean.  I'll probably just end up cutting it, as it IS paper after all and it's a lot longer than I need.  But here's to show just how much I have to do, editing-wise, on these.  Not even just the paper, but we had a terrible bright spot coming in from my kitchen window that was not co-operating at being overpowered - every time I upped the power on my flash and strobe it would blow out the image and seeing as I was already on ISO 100 at somewhere around f22...  Photoshop is my friend indeed.