Last Monday night was Betty Pages 70th birthday. So we decided to shoot a small tribute to her and roll in history. Page was “Miss January 1955”, one of the earliest Playmates of the Month. Often referred to as the “Queen of Pinups”, her jet black hair, blue eyes, and trademark bangs have influenced artists for generations.
“I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society,” Hugh Hefner
My original plan was to shoot parts of the shoot that an old Linhof 4×5 camera. unfortunately there was a minor problem with the exposure an I only had 1 polaroid that cam out correctly. Eden Velvet Black slipped in to the role like she was born to be the next Betty Page. But a special thanks to Tobias G+ for helping out with all the chemical stuff 😉
From 1952 through 1957, she posed for photographer Irving Klaw for mail-order photographs with pin-up, bondage or sadomasochistic themes, making her the first famous bondage model. Klaw also used Page in dozens of short, black-and-white 8mm and 16mm “specialty” films, which catered to specific requests from his clientele. These silent featurettes showed women clad in lingerie and high heels, acting out fetishistic scenarios of abduction, domination, and slave-training; bondage, spanking, and elaborate leather costumes and restraints were included periodically. Page alternated between playing a stern dominatrix, and a helpless victim bound hand and foot. Klaw also produced a line of still photos taken during these sessions. Some have become iconic images, such as his highest-selling photo of Page—shown gagged and bound in a web of ropes, from the film Leopard Bikini Bound. Although these “underground” features had the same crude style and clandestine distribution as the pornographic “stag” films of the time, Klaw’s all-female films (and still photos) never featured any nudity or explicit sexual content.
To try and keep things authentic my original plan was to shoot only monotone images
But I liked the colour images so much I wanted to keep several of them natural looking
According to long-time friend and business agent Mark Roesler, on December 6, 2008, Bettie Page was hospitalized in critical condition. Roesler was quoted by the Associated Press as saying Page had suffered a heart attackand by Los Angeles television station KNBC as claiming Page was suffering from pneumonia. A family friend said Page was in a coma, a claim not denied by Roesler. Her family eventually agreed to discontinue life support, and she died at 18:41 PST on December 11, 2008.
She is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. Her headstone lists her name as “Bettie Mae Page” and includes the legend “Queen of Pin-Ups”.
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