This’ll be another two part photography series similar to the one I previously posted, “Shooting w/ Kiwi pinup Miss Victory Violet”. Cora Harrington is a professional blogger, creator and editor in chief of The Lingerie Addict. www.thelingerieaddict.com. The mission for Cora's site was to create an inclusive home for enthusiasts of the brands and cultures of lingerie, similarly to those that exist for outerwear, jewelry, accessories, etc. She approaches her passion and coverage of the lingerie industry with an obsessive knowledge […which I’ve seen in person, which is why she always gives me anxiety when she says “What do you think?”, during a shoot together], similar to artisans of wine, craft beer, comics, etc. She knows everything! The fabric, the name of the lace, the company that created the piece and their entire backstory. It’s truly impressive.
I’ve heard of The Lingerie Addict long before I’d shot with her. We run in many of the same circles and though I wouldn’t refer to her esthetic or brand “pinup”, I myself don’t really consider myself a pinup photographer […that’s a label everyone else tends to put on me]. Regardless, Cora does follows some of the well known models in the pinup community such as Gia Genevieve […just posted a blog chronicles my first shoot with Gia in “Finally, the Gia Genevieve post I’ve been wanting to make since joining Steemit!”] and Angelique Noire. I’d photographed many of these women, and unbeknownst to me, Cora had been following my work for years.
In November of 2015 I was booking my last shoots of the year in LA and Las Vegas. I made a post on Instagram that I could take one additional booking in Vegas. Cora reached out to me and we set up our first shoot. I had no idea at the time that first email would be the start of a great friendship and on-going collaborative process together. It was a spontaneous arrangement, especially on Cora’s end, living in Seattle at the time and only two weeks until I arrived in Las Vegas.
I drove straight from LA to Las Vegas, doing a pretty good job of timing the four hour trip to pick Cora up at Mccarran International airport. I got her to The Artisan Hotel, where she was staying and we were shooting the following night. Our personalities clicked immediately, as Cora is a bit stoic; not at all wordy or verbose, which was a welcomed change from the whirlwind week I’d just spent working in LA. The next day I had a shoot that afternoon. That evening we met with Ari Barbie, the make-up artist I booked for Cora’s shoot and they got to work.
When I arrived to shoot, Cora had already laid out a half dozen of her favorite looks. Just incredible pieces from some of the best designers in the world […I’ve shot a lot of brands over the years and I’ve never seen a collection to this high of a standard] including Pleasurements, Kiss Me Deadly, Hanky Panky, Layneau, Orchard Corset, and What Katie Did. Shooting was completely organic. So rare, but we managed to read each other with very little discussion. I shoot with available light so many of my exposures are longer than most photographers using light kits and stobes. Cora moved gracefully, like she was in slow motion. I gave her minimal direction, and the images just came from there.
We made frequent wardrobe changes and moved around the hotel, floor by floor, making pictures in the lobbies. Even the elevators. Fortunately, I’ve earned free reign of The Artisan over the last few years of shooting in Vegas […I’m low risk because I don’t come with a crew or camera equipment]. I’m at my most comfortable in dark, moody environments with lots of shadows, and that atmosphere is an amazing compliment to photographing men and women of color. Studio flashes and strobes tend to bounce a blueish light against the skin, and low light environments are incredible for moody warm tones, accentuating browns, yellows and subtle greens that mix on the skin with the nearby illumination.
For me, it’s still fascinating for me to know that Cora never intended on being the face of The Lingerie Addict, specially because she’s SO good at modeling, and supporting everything the blog’s brand is about. Still to this day, all the photos I’ve made with Cora are some of my personal favorites, and they’ve done remarkably well on her site. You should take time to visit The Lingerie Addict, and read her post “The Night Witch: Dark Pinup With Lars Kommienezuspadt”, where she talks about her experience shooting together during this same editorial.
I’ll be posting part two of this series tomorrow, where I shot another editorial with Cora for her blog while in NYC this summer. Check back. Follow my Steemit blog @kommienezuspadt!
Thanks for reading!