Cozy Corner - Pin-up

written by Roxana Clares based on Elvis Suarez's (Photographer) notes

After some time of indecision and speculation we finally decided to try a pinup style shoot, mostly because Iris Montoya, our makeup artist, had been insisting for months. We're glad she did. It's important to note that although we aimed to be authentic to the 50's in specific, we agreed that if something was visually appealing we wouldn't shy away from it because of historical inaccuracy.

From the conceptual stages we agreed that finding the right model was essential to the project.  We immediately created a casting call in ModelMayhem.com and were lucky to get several responses. However, we booked a local actress/model Randy had already worked with instead;  as Murphy's Law would have it, said model canceled the night before the shoot. I immediately thought of Danny Gherman who had impressed us, not only with her portfolio but also with her elaborate, professional and warm response to our casting call. We honestly believe that in the world of photography and production, when one is faced with unforeseen obstacles, the solution will almost always improve the entire concept. Danny is not only beautiful but her look strongly resembles the era. Her flexibility, work ethic and willingness were the main reasons for the success of the shoot.

Obtaining wardrobe that was relevant to the era proved to be a demanding task but we were fortunate to have a friend recommend LA Boudoir, a local vintage store. Their inventory was ideal for our shoot and Lauren Arkin (owner) was remarkably willing and able to help. We look forward to continuing the relationship with her and her store. 

The makeup was, for the most part, designed by Iris Montoya (makeup artist) to be true to the 50s pinup style.  Following the dramatic makeup tendencies of the roaring 20s came the glamorous but natural look of the 50s. Women sought a rosy feminine look, but the pinups often featured black eyeliner and long black lashes. The lips, which were to look full and soft, heavily favored shades of red. By applying a bit more shimmer to the scheme of the makeup, Iris made it more appealing to our modern fashion.

Lighting Plot:

We opted to use a little bit less diffusion on our lights than usual because we thought more defined shadows were accurate to the era we were aiming for. We were immediately in love with the test shots and amazed at how much they resembled a very classic pinup look.

Key light was a Norman IL2500  with 5" wide reflector and Light Grid Diffusion 

Hair-light, camera right - Strip softbox with grid

More subtle kicker from camera left - IL2500 with 1/2 CTS gel from inside kitchen (Bounced)

Photek Softlighter umbrella bounced behind camera for ambience, to light the diner areas shown in the reflection.

Camera Equipment:

We used our D700 with a Nikon 24-70 F2.8 lens. Settled for an f4 and/or f5.6 to stay close to the sweet spot of the lens. As usual, it would've been ideal to have a faster lens (f1.4 or f.8) so that I could shoot at an f2.8 and still be around the sweet spot of the lens while gaining a shallower depth of field. 

Post-production:  

Before I started to work on the images, I looked through the presets in Adobe Lightroom to see if any would get close to the look we were going for. I was happy with one of the available presets but decided not to apply it at this point; I first moved the image to Photoshop, bypassing its Camera Raw plug-in. Using Photoshop’s standard tools, and Portrait Professional plug-ins, I started on basic detailed corrections such as skin, eyes, teeth and facial shape. For body shape corrections I used the Liquify tool. 

Once satisfied with the results, I moved the image back to Lightroom where I applied the preset and saved the image as a Tiff file. I was surprised when I found the preset was treating the image differently, so I took some time in tweaking it to make it treat the Tiff just like it had the Raw file. After some time I became satisfied with the look but noticed some parts, specifically the corset, looked over-colorized. To correct this, I placed the edited image (with preset) on top of the edited image (without preset) and combined the two. 

photographer: Elvis Suarez for GlassWorks MultiMedia

model: Danny Gherman

makeup: Iris Montoya

gaffer: Randy Valdes
wardrobe: Lauren Arkin of LA Boudoir

equipment rental: GEARstudio Miami

location: The Cozy Corner