Dark pinup w/ Miss Victory Violet!

Hey, Steemit! I’m finally falling in to a working, Magic: The Gathering and blogging routine. Today was great. @vermillionfox, @guthrie and I came to @caffetto this afternoon. We worked for a while, had lunch and hung out until @tarotbyfergus showed up. It’s funny how it’s become a Pavlovian response that when he rolls up on his bike, the laptop and iPad’s go away and the play mats and dice come out. A few good games and the party broke up. I stuck around here at the coffee shop and I’m hanging out with @bryanpolitte now. We’ll be drawing till midnight or so.

Tonight’s photography falls in to the category of work being caught up on. This was a shoot from Viva Las Vegas in April. I was finally reunited with Miss Victory Violet. The pinup celebrity blogger from New Zealand. I have a special relationship with her. Our first shoot was just hours before she won the 2016 Viva Las Vegas pinup pageant. Winners of that pageant tend to go on to become Instafamous personalities in the vintage/rockabilly scene. Miss Victory Violet wasn’t an exception and she is now known across the world for her blog, fashion and photos.

Since that memorable first shoot together, we’ve shot together again, once at Viva Las Vegas in 2016 at an epic sunrise shoot in Valley Of Fire, NV. You can read about that shoot in my previous blog post on Steemit […two years ago if you can believe that], “Shooting w/ Kiwi pinup girl Miss Victory Violet - Part 2”. We took 2017 off. In fact, I didn’t even get to see her for a hug. She was swept up in autograph signings and Viva events, and I was busy shooting my ass off during every waking minute of the weekend. She is genuinely one of my favorite people in the pinup scene, so that was sad.

Leading up to this year’s Viva, she contacted me far in advance, during the fall of last year to inquire about a shoot. We decided on the Monday following the Viva festivities. I think we both wanted to go in to a shoot with a clear head. The Valley Of Fire shoot was a big deal. We decided that rather than try to come up with something more epic than the desert at sunrise, we’d just come up with a concept so different, it commanded her followers attention. We ended up going with a dark look, almost goth, which is SO out of Miss Victory Violet’s usual esthetic.

Seeing her in black lipstick was so cool. I’ve known this lady for years and she’s always been bright, colorful and cheerful. This was the antithesis of that. The low light of The Artisan Hotel just added to the somber, sexy mood. She had outfits hand made by designers in London and New Zealand. We walked through the hotel finding shadowy areas that would create a narrative, like a scene from an Old Hollywood film. I’ve been excited to edit these images for months now. These are the first ones, but there will be more of Miss Victory Violet in the weeks to come. 

Thanks for reading! Thanks to everyone that's been supporting and participating in Trial by Comics. There are already a few entries for "Video Games"! For more photography, art, illustration and the stories behind the work, follow me here @kommienezuspadt.