Valentines Pin Ups

What a month it has been! 
I set about coming up with an alternative sexy shoot theme to pass onto the Pearman Photography  clients for the romantic month of February.  I personally HATE boudoir photography.  For me it evokes notions of oiled up women doing tacky poses, in bad lighting, throughout the 80's & 90’s. 

  










As I'm always aiming to be innovative, I simply had to evolve the theme.
The age of 50’s Rockabilly chic is pretty established as an aspect of fashion.  The big hair, the winged eyes, and trashy vibe entered into a mainstream in fashion with the rise and fall of the legend Miss Winehouse.   Although I love this style, I didn’t want to be too safe and obvious.

I wanted to give my February Valentines shoot’s something a bit different.  Over Christmas I watched the entire Band of Brothers box-set.  I loved the accuracy of the interpretation of the 1940’s and this began to formulate my idea further.  The Pin up was an art form that boomed in WW2.  Soldiers painted beautiful women on the sides of their planes for luck, and the art-form was an indulgence for soldiers missing their women at home.

Recently with Burlesque trends, this vibe has come back into the forefront of styling.  What I love the most about this style is that the whole thing was based around women who were not at all real.  They were illustrated.  Their proportions defy science, similar to all of our magazines on the shelves today.  Instead of using a pencil to draw out our ideal woman, we use Photoshop!

So by taking inspiration from the 1940’s illustrated women, I wanted to offer today’s Newcastle ladies the chance to come and have a photo-shoot, where they had the opportunity to style it in line with who they are.  We’d then work together to add the more fantastical appeal by playing around with technology of air-brushing and retouching.  Before I started shouting about this for Valentines day, I had to test it.  So I invited some bloggers along.   



Amy Lord from Ten Penny Dreams has a great blog, she is an aspiring writer, and uses her blog to document her route to becoming a full time writer.  She attended the Blogcademy down in London recently hosted by famous bloggers Kat Williams, Gala Darling and Shauna Haider.  After chatting with Amy I was impressed that she is very disciplined in her blogging.  At 4 times a week, she puts my monthly posts to shame.  Amy wanted to do something more along the lines of housewife chic with her shoot.  Here is a small selection of what we created together.

You can subscribe to Amy’s blog, and follow her on twitter @tenpennydreams and @AmyWritesStuff 
Next up was Sandra Tang.  I met Sandra at The House of Seduction Fashion show event I covered this month at Newcastle’s Fat Buddha.  You can see their blog about my work on this night here.  Not only does Sandra live and breathe fashion, she organizes Newcastle’s Fashion Week.  Sandra naturally brought a much more fashionista take to the brief of 1940’s pin up.  Her first “piece” to wear was a fabulous suit that a friend of her’s had kept aside especially for her at a house clearance.  These are obviously the people you need to know to get your hands on the authentic items! Sandra blogs about all things fashion every couple of days.  Here is her blog about coming to the studio.

You can subscribe to Sandra’s blog and follow her on twitter @sandiebeach. With these two already very different takes on my brief, I knew that this could evolve into something more along the lines of a long-term project.  So I have decided to keep it in the mix as something available from the studio on an ongoing basis.  In the next few weeks I’ll be welcoming a pin up cyclist to the studio, a pin up medium and even a pin up with a pet puppy!  I can’t wait. There is a long-term offer now featured to the people of Newcastle through NE1 offers (thanks to Sandra).  You can get this by going here.

Family Babies

Half of the stock that I am made from is GEORDIE flavoured.
My maternal grandmother gutted herring on the banks of North Shields fish quay, and I love that part of me is made up with this fascinating piece of history.  Not only did the late and great Minnie Hutchinson work all her life (she had to go and get married in her lunch break) she also bore a lot of children, crazy quantities by today’s standards, but nearer the norm then.  

The Don Herself.

Having 7 children (6 survived) meant that I grew up with a traditionally large Geordie family.  I love working for large families in my studio, and find myself relating to the children who have many cousins and aunties and uncles.  As that is how I remember my own childhood.

5 of the sisters, with Grandma.  We think Aunty Avril was taking the picture.

I can remember regular visits to Grandma’s, at which me and my sister were lavished with huge amounts of sweets (Grandma thought my Mam’s idea of giving us sugar free diets was just “stupid”) and bizarrely fridge-chilled crisps (to keep them “fresh”).  It was at these visits Grandma kept the whole family informed of everyone else’s news.  Keeping in touch with the whole family together was more of a seasonal occasion, saved for Christmases and birthdays.  We’d have big family trips out to places in the North East, or head to “One of the Aunties”.  Large buffets where everyone chipped in a few plates produced a varied smorgasbord of party treats.  Me and the cousins would usually sneak small bowls of this food and go and play in a part of the host’s house that was off-limits.  This usually consisted of criminal activities like finding Aunty Beryl’s rollers, jumping on Aunty Avril’s bed, or transforming a zed bed at my Mam’s house into a huge slide (said zed bed was of course broken).  We were always encouraged to show off our talents at these events.  I can recall tap dancing on a plank of wood in a living room one year, and jamming with a keyboard and recorder at another with my saxophone.  As a bunch of 6 sisters, the aunties themselves were prone to bursting into song, and these performances were usually led by the notorious Aunty Betty, who was always cracking jokes, bursting into song and leaping into dance – which we children naturally found hysterical.

Rocking out at my 2nd Birthday Tea Party

As the group of cousins grew up, we all set off on our own paths.  We have Managers, a Fireman, Fishermen, a Naval Engineer, a Dancer turned Pilates Teacher, an IT guru, a full time Mammy, and me, the photographer in the family.  And as the hands of time “tick tocked” on, we now have the beginnings of the next generation!  With two new babies at the same time arriving into our family, I simply had to get the camera out.

Baby ISLA MAY BIGGS  

Baby John (We Think)

That's John on the Space Hopper

Baby Isla arrived at 01:58 on 4th October 2012.  She is the new twig on the Aunty Glen and Uncle Jackie branch of the tree.  They had John & Richard, and Isla is John’s daughter.  He married the lovely Kerrie.  

Isla is, so far, a very delicate and graceful baby, she was very calm and quiet when we did her photo-shoot at the studio.  I couldn’t resist imposing my strange musings to dress her up in some old lady pearls.  (I love making babies look like old people). 

Baby MAX WILLIAM ANDERSON 

Lindsay grabbing some cake and chill time at my 3rd Birthday Party

Baby Max arrived at 07:42 on 19th October 2012.  Max has sprouted from the Aunty Beryl branch of the tree.  Aunty Beryl married Uncle George, and they had Judy.  Judy had Lindsay and Samantha, then Jessica.  

Baby Lindsay

Lindsay fell in love with the cheeky Paul, and they had Max.  Max blew me away with his strength.  He was already pushing nearly his full weight on his legs, and had no trouble at all in holding his head up and resting on his arms.  Very alert and active, I reckon he will be a “full of beans” boy. He is also the double of his Daddy!
With two technically similar photo shoots, with babies only two weeks apart in age, you can see how different the photography came out.  This is one of my most favourite parts of family photography, no two sessions are ever the same.

Even when the family trees have grown from the same roots.