Pin-Up Girls!
I have always loved pin-ups and since 2010 I have been photographing Pinup-Girls extensively, greatly affected by the style and aesthetics of Gil Elvgren, with a single-colour backdrop and the minimal amount of props, fearing that they might overshadow the girls. I have always strived for them to be as non-explicit as possible but still have an air of eroticism and innocence, although I am aware that there have been some very explicit pin-ups in history.
November 2013 (4 years into the project) was when I met with model and artist Irene Astral, which shared my love for pin-ups and we produced twelve more together (wishing them to be a calendar style collection), many of which were not set in the studio, but in real-life environments, which was a big turn in my shooting style.
My editing process also changed, now including the "burn and dodge" technique amongst others to give the photos a more "pin-up painted" look. In parallel, I also kept shooting pin-up photos with other models and all that resulted in having a quite big pin-up portfolio by the start of 2016. The decision of having an exhibition was the only natural step: Pin-ups are meant to be "pinned up walls" in the first place!
So, how did I choose the ones that got into the exhibition?
At the time of shooting, the first-tier selection took place, where I chose which photos will be edited based
on how close they were to my (or our) original vision and the source material (where applicable). From these, I chose 3-5 as candidates for "future use" and didn't upload them to my online portfolio.
When the decision to hold an exhibition was made, I printed them all in 10x15 cm photos and spread them on my living room floor, in order to have a grand view of all of them, and starting grouping them according to either pose or subject. This grouping, ungrouping and re-grouping took around a month, during which I also took the advice of many friends, whose judgment I trust.
What follows is a synopsis of my second tier decisions, divided into sections of related pin-up photographs.
This does not exactly reflect "how" the decisions were made, as it was a more "organic" approach,
but I believe it's a good indication of what went on in my mind!
The Exhibition started at 23rd January 2016.
