Corset, Fishnets and Feathers OH MY!

Saturday we (by we I mean the troupe I dance with) had our first professional photo shoot. This has been a long time coming. We have a lot of new girls in the troupe and no professional pictures. I should point out they we are a very diverse group with an age spread for 15 to 52 (that's me). Our first "set up" was to be our big girl bellydance picture....all of us dressed in black and silver belly dance costumes. This was by order of our fearless, talented leader who wanted to wear her fabulous new Madame Abla dress that was....you guessed...black and silver. The second shoot was a bit more tawdry with the required wear black and red corsets, fishnets and feathers. Our shoot was in Canoga Park at 10:00 in the morning. That meant that I had to get up at 6:00 am to color my gray hairs, shave all the appropriate locations including my upper lip and areas I don't want to discuss.. plus moisturize, pluck and spray paint my body. I discovered that Preparation H really does help plump up wrinkles, although it doesn't last as long as one would hope and you smell like cod liver oil but hey, beauty has its price, right?
After all the painting and plastering I had to apply crystal eyelashes at 8:00 in the morning, all while drinking coffee and trying to remember wear I put the heavy duty fishnets. The ones that hold everything in and make your legs look like waffles when you finally peel then off. Then off to "the drawer". The one I keep all the "slutty" clothes...I needed a sexy red bra, a black corset, the fishnets, something to try to cover my flabby arms lest I look like a jelly roll in the photos....Amazingly I readily pulled these out without a problem..Packed them all up along with the bellydance clothes, the stilettos, long black boots and the seven inch black patten leather platforms with the red flames. Yes, I have seven inch platforms and yes I wear them...me and drag queens. So off to Canoga. Me and Amanda, all made up and ready for the shoot, hopin we did not get stopped for any reason. We were just a tadded over made up for that early in the morning. All the girls were on time..a first. The first shoot we all looked so beautiful....even this old gal didn't look too bad and I know Bijan, the photographer, is brilliant and will eventually make me look at least 10 years younger when he retouches them. The next shoot was something out of a Moulin Rogue flashback. We all got trussed and taped (yes there were boobies that needed taping and others that need to be tamed) We poured ourselves into the corsets and tutus..hair and feathers.
After 20 minutes of positioning (Leela has a great eye for the staging) our timid photog came in to the studio..we had banned him during our dressing and set up.....his reaction was priceless....he walked in, looked at all of us and said "oh wow!!" then was quite speechless.
Later that day we had a chance to see the rough pictures...they were really great. I felt so lucky to be in the company of so many beautiful women.
For anyone who thinks modeling is easy...think again. It is hot, uncomfortable, one of the girls nearly passed out from locking her knees for so long and the majority of us were so sore the next day we felt like we had done a mini marathon. There is much awkward positioning to make us look natural......So corset, fishnets and feathers makes for pretty girls.....I will post the picture when I get the younger, retouched version......