A Betty Page Inspired Set that Explores the Intersection Between Classic Cheeky Pinup and Femme Domme Fetish!

We entitled this set ‘Dark Angel’ after whom it was inspired by, the late great Queen of the Pinups, the Dark Angel, Betty Page.  We admire Betty Page for the way she broke the rules and pushed the social boundaries of our nation in her heyday.  She has had an enormous and lasting impact on the fashion and beauty industry.

We love her raw, naturally uninhibited sex appeal and the fact that she is a fetish icon without having ever portraying anything explicit in any of her films or photos.  She has become a legend; at the time however, she was just making a living and having fun.  In a 1998 interview with Playboy, Betty said of her career,

“I never thought it was shameful.  I felt normal.  It’s just that it was much better than pounding on a typewriter eight hours a day, which gets monotonous.”

We couldn’t agree with her more!!

We developed the theme and story-line of this photo set and shot it over the course of two days to enter into a contest on the website Zivity.com.  The theme of the contest was ‘Pinup’ (which Bebe is a big fan of) and there weren’t many other entries in the contest, so we decided to go for it- plus there was a chance to win $100 and a trip for two to Las Vegas for the Viva Las Vegas 13 Rockabilly weekend!  When the contest closed out, we were actually leading in votes for new sets – but the contest winner was determined by the VLV sponsor, and he opted for a more ‘Rockabilly Pinup’ set, justifiably so.  But we had a great time coming up with this and shooting it!

The set is a great little story about a date between a pinup and her unsuspecting fella.  The set contains sexy, cute, and oftentimes humorous photos emulating the style and poses of Betty Page’s retro bondage work, while of course adding our ‘graphic’ Focal Impulse style.

We only put a few shots from the set on the Focal Impulse site originally- urging folk to check the whole set out on Zivity and vote for us!  But sadly, the photos containing D. Markus were all removed from our set by Zivity for breaking the rules (oops), so the story was lost and the set has never been posted in entirety anywhere…

UNTIL NOW!!

UPDATE:

Check out the little video we made- a Directors’ Cut of the shoot, so you get the whole story that Zivity wouldn’t let you see!!  Just click the link below- the video is graciously being hosted on YouTube for free!  Thanks YouTube!!  Don’t forget to leave a comment!

Directors Cut of Date Night with The Dark Angel

ANOTHER UPDATE:

One of our favorite artists EVER, Adam Strange, was actually so inspired by the Dark Angel photo set (Bebe’s bum shots) that he actually made a painting based on one of the photos from the set!!  We are completely honored and flattered!!  D Markus bought it for Bebe as a gift!  Isn’t he the sweetest?

Check out Adam’s Strange’s painting of Bebe’s Bum here!