This past April, I made my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for Viva Last Vegas. Once a year, pinups and greasers from around the world come to the huge Rockabilly Weekend festival. I’ve gained somewhat of a reputation as the premier “dark pinup photographer” and typically book up for Viva Las Vegas at least six month prior.
Sometime around fall 2014 I received a booking from a beautiful New Zealand pinup named Ella Webster, also known as Miss Victory Violet. We had our date for VLV set, shooting at my friend Yocelin’s beautiful mid-century modern home in Paradise Palms, only hours before Ella competed in the annual Pinup Pageant […probably the biggest attraction during Viva].
Ella is an absolute dream client. She’s kind, gorgeous and a wonderful model. She does her own hair, make-up and came with a few stunning wardrobe looks. We made good use of our time throughout Yocelin’s home. I love my job, and shooting is my favorite part, so it never feels like “work”, but Ella was exceptionally fun.
Ironically […but not particularly unusual for me], my favorite images from our first shoot came once we snuck in to Yocelin’s backyard. It’s Nevada, so just dry sand, a few old classic cars and rusted out truck bodies. If there’s anything I strive for in my shoots, it’s avoiding the redundancy of poses and locations that many photographers fall in to.
The entire shoot was a delight. The photos did amazingly well on her blog, www.missvictoryviolet.com, and her Instagram @missvictoryviolet. One particular shot almost reaching 7,000 likes […which makes me wince imagining how that’d convert on Steemit].
Ella got changed and headed straight for the Pinup Pageant, where she won shortly thereafter. Super proud of her. Here’s the complete editorial from that first shoot.
One year later, Miss Victory Violet returned to the US for Viva Las Vegas, 2016. Clearly, we had to up our game after the success of the previous collaboration. We woke up at an ungodly hour to drive to Valley Of Fire before sunrise […poor girl was so jet lagged after a 19 hour flight].
I’ll be posting the second part of this series including a blog and the complete editorial from Viva Las Vegas 2016 tomorrow afternoon.
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