PIN-UPS AHOY!

Here are the official photos of our contestants for the Pin-Up Finland 2015 competition, which I am part of producing this year!

The pageant is a friendly contest looking to give girls interested in becoming a pin-up model a chace to get a foot in between the door and kick off a possible career.
You saw a little making-of earlier already. There is also an official making-of video which you can see here.

Cherry Star

Cherry La Teae

Carissa La Dame

Cherry Jo Candie

Honey de Rose

Ida von Dark

Inka La Vinda

Be Bop A Roosa

Sweet Honey Susan

Fanny White

Veda de Cadenza

Miss Candy Cat

Do you have a favourite?

Photos by Hannes Honkanen.
Concept and styling by me &Tinker.
Clothing by Vintag'Eijas / Eija Mannila (outfits sewn separately for each contenstant)
Make Up: VIP MakeUp Lounge Mia Sirén & Mercy Maybelle
Shot at Relandersgrund, Helsinki.

(Our clothes are mixed from out own wardrobes and not from Eija's.)

The winner will be chosen next weekend -October 3rd - by a panel of judges in Lahti at the American Car Show. The final is in three rounds featuring different (amazing!! - Eija is so talented to make repro and pick out vintage. Swoon.) outfits from Vintag'Eijas as well as accessories from Rockabilly Cherry and Sulokas. PinUp Helsinki will offer the winner a photoshoot.

There is also a separate social media vote going on on Facebook, which you can find here:
Pin-Up Finland finlaists, with styling by the contestants themselves and photos by Marika Kiviharju.

I am a bit sceptic of votes on social media as they usually just generate likes for the ones with the most active friends or followers... but everything should of course not be taken so seriously. So go ahead and give the photo and model you like the best your vote if you so like!

SAY CHEESE! / THE PIN-UP FINLAND FINALISTS' PHOTO SHOOT

Last week we organised the official photo shoot for the twelve Pin-Up Finland finalists!
As you  may remember from earlier, I am part of producing and hosting the competition this year,

The day started at our studio for hair and make up. The contestants arrived from all corners of the country for their big day. On big shoots like this, there is always a lot of waiting.

We are very proud to have Béseame Cosmetics as one of our sponsors for the finals!

Make up artists Mercy and Mia in full action.

Me rolling some hair. (Photo by @ruskarieban)

We had one shoot on location in our studio. But for our main calendar pictures we headed elsewhere!

Here are our fabulous  outfits for the ladies, put together by our clothing sponsor Vintag'Eijas! Vintag'Eijas is a vintage store as well a seamstress (that I am sure many of you have heard of in blogs and such, even if you may not be Finnish) and she had done an amazing job making outfits for the girls!

And then we headed over to our actual location; the old lighthouse ship Relandersgrund! It serves as a café nowadays. Worth a stop if you are in town; it's details and the  surroundings are very nice.

 And then it started raining...

 Waiting out the rain on board.

So on to plan B, taking the rest of the pictures inside the ship.

 Hannes at work.

At the end of the* (very long) day it was time for us to get out of the comfy wear and into the little shorts and do one last round of posing ourselves. Here's an instagram shot of that, the real pictures are to be revealed later.

(...And we've seen them already and they are just great! Meep meep!)

*) well, almost at the end of. We still had to dig out staples (from posters) from and paint one wall back at our old studio. Phew!

WHITE ON WHITE WITH SPARKLE; WINTER PHOTOSHOOT

Today I had a ice queen-themed shoot for my winter act with Asko Rantanen. We had been waiting for a suitable day with the right weather and amount of snow for some time already and today everything was just right! It was a productive day and the results will be great. The act itself has not been that special, one of my so called "dinner numbers" (i.e. one that you can easily do anywhere, mainly just an aesthetic act that perhaps has more surface than depth to it. Which is totally alright.), but I started been developing it bit by bit this year and also adding to the costume, making the whole thing evolve into something more one day. And well now I better work on it because I'm getting awesome pics, heh.

I only used part of my costume though; I had a modified sheet for the skirt instead of the actual sateen one (it will thank me later, I am sure).

A big part of shooting is just setting it up and preparing and, when outdoors especially, correcting the clothing and props and and and... This time we shot without an assistant so there was a lot of concentrating going on.


Everything is not serious business though, especially not after a couple of hours in the snow.

As you can see... well, who could resist not doing this anyway?
(Me, actually. I did learn some things as a kid.)



Our last location was just around the corner of our house. Dag joined us and we took the sledge there.
(Note my very gracious winter queen boots and xxx-layers of socks underneath.)

Behind the scenes shots also by Asko.

PASTEL POP!

The Itty-Bitty Tease Cabaret anno 2015! We are pairing up with Lady Laverna and miss Amber Storm this year resulting in being, once again, a troupe of five. (And we are doing something totally different for this year's festival!)

We haven't actually had a mutual group shoot in two years, and due to shitloads of work and different schedules we got ourselves into a hurry to get a something promo picture of the five of us taken. But we managed to do  a quick shoot ourselves at our studio just before Christmas. Even though it really is no photo studio, we have done quite many shoots over at our workspace in the end; it has rendered itself very useful in many ways...
This time, we went for pastel-pop-candy-fluff-crazy.


And that we are.
Photos and post-production by me*.

*) Altough I would save me some time would we just iron the drapes ourselves instead of doing so in Photoshop... For the next time then!

I SEE TALL, DARK ART! - TABULALAND

More art posts coming up!
-because we need more art in our lives, more art on our walls, and art should be easily accessible.

Those were the thoughts of two of my friends, comic artist, illustrator and gallerist Aiju Salminen and producer Saara Konttinen, who thus opened up their own gallery. Online. They wanted to make a gallery with art by contemporary artists, a gallery that would not be the kind that you might dread stepping into, but accessible by anyone anywhere and with art that could be described as strange and fun and easy to approach. So Tabulaland was born. I’ve said it before, I love it when I see talented people I know have a great idea and are able to make it happen just the way they want it!


So what to put on my wall then? Let's look at a few different works.

Ilkka Luttinen: Graveyeard, oil on canvas (300x197cm) 

 

Sami Viljanto: What Would George Lazenby Do? Poster.

Suvi Aarnio: Brainwashed. Stichwork.

Katri Sipiläinen: Snall as Blood, water-colour on paper.

Tabulaland is both an online gallery and art store with the occasional real life pop-up exhibition here and there, that exhibits and sells art by both underground artist and already well established ones. The gallery covers pieces from big paintings to sketches and tattoo flash art. Prices in the shop ranges from 20 euros to over 8k, so there is indeed something for everyone.

I don't own any pieces from Tabulaland but I do have the I See tall, Dark Art! -Tabulaland T-shirt made by Aiju.

The store and gallery has been up and running for about two months now and an international version of the site (in English) will be available soon.

In honour of the launch of the international site being just around the corner I have the chance to give away a signed art print of Saara Salmi’s limited edition work done exclusively for Tabulaland; the Revelation of Paula!

To enter the give away visit Tabulaland.com  and leave me a comment on this post, telling me which piece from Tabulaland you would like to have on your wall. Or which piece is your favourite -  when it comes to art I often find I like many pieces without necessarily being able to picture me having it on my own walls or in the house.

Note that if you do not have a site or account linked trough your signature you must be sure to leave me your contact details so I can readh you.
I will draw the winner randomly on the last of this month; November 30!

(On a side note, my skirt is made by me and the shiny heart shoes are by Frollein von Sofa).

NOVEMBER ROSES

A few pictures from one of the shoots I had earlier this year with Asko Rantanen.
The dress is made by me, it's for one of my acts.