Mid-August monochromes!

Hey, Hive! I’m coming up for air and during this brief intermission, I wanted to make a post here. One thing about Hive; habits form, at least for me. When I post regularly, I often continue to post regularly, until something like travel or a life event disrupts my routine. When I miss a week, that in itself can become a habit, causing me to look back and realize I haven’t blogged in 20+ days. Because of that, I try to always get a minimum of one or two posts on Hive every week. This one right now, at almost 2:00a.m. is a stretch, but I know I’ll sleep better tonight knowing I made good on that commitment.

Tonight, I’ll be sharing a collection of new black and whites from some of my favorite photos. I do this once a month or so. Almost all of my dark pinup photography is shared with the world as color images. The warmth of the candles is fully felt, and the textures come alive, but there is something timeless about black and white, Old Hollywood images. This first one is from Viva Las Vegas with Ellie Rayne. This shoot was the last before my Dark Pinup book by @wcpublish went to print. In many ways, I feel like Ellie saved the entire book!

This second image is from Melbourne, VIC. On this trip, as a side note, I actually met up with @veryspider and shared coffee while we drew together at Proud Mary’s. Also, while there in 2019, I booked several shoots, one of which is with this lovely pinup, Lady Medusa. We shot at a small boutique hotel downtown and this was one of the most striking images from our session together. The color version of this went a bit viral on Instagram receiving almost 3,000 likes! I hope things work out so that I’m eventually able to shoot with her again.

Lastly, this final image is from a client shoot for a woman that was just starting a witch tea company. She had partnered with another brand that made small tea cups and she met me for the session at the Clark Gable estate in Pasadena; one of my favorite locations on the west coast. The inside of the home is beautiful with seemingly endless rooms with original wood, decor and paintings, but this shot was taken outside with blooming flowers. The high key exposure makes this a particularly stunning black and white.