Burlesque...

These photograph's were taken for my college final major project, my theme was Burlesque and the 1950s. I researched a lot into Dita Von Teese and the work of Ali Mahdavi who work closely with Von Teese. For primary research, I emailed him and asked him for advice, and what Dita was like to work with and as a person. I was very happy with the help he gave me, and figured I was now ready to do a photoshoot of my own!

I 'Googled' many Burlesque company's in my area of Liverpool and finally found a beautiful young woman who offered to help with my coursework. As I was a student, I couldn't afford a payment to her, however, she was happy to do it FOC but to have the photograph's to use for her own use. I then realised that my photograph's would look better if there was more than 1 dancer in them, but an odd number would be best... so my next aim was to find 2 others. Luckily, the Burlesque dancer who I already had made arrangements with, who went by the name of 'Phoenix Snow', happened to teach it at John Moore's University in Liverpool and was able to ask her student's if they were willing to help. I did a casting online, and chose 2 more girls who were perfect for my chosen topic.

I was really looking forward to the day of the shoot. Makeup artists and hair stylists were ready, the girl's were excited and the costumes had been made. I had my tutors running round like headless chicken's arranging the studio to how I had imagined it to look.

The day came, and this almighty feeling of anxiety came over me! I was so nervous that things would not go according to plan, and the fact that I had never met my model's made this even worse!! 

They arrived at my college on time, hair and makeup had been done and they were so excited! They were carrying suitcases like they were going on holiday- they had SO much stuff! I took them up to the studio where they began to get changed into their nipple tassles and stocking's and we were ready to go!

After 2 hours of costume changes and photographing in the studio, we made our way to the local park where we took pin-up style photograph's, some digitally and some on film!

Finally, the photograph's were done :) Just had to edit them until I was happy and my final photograph's were sorted!