Growing up in the City of Orange in Southern California, I devoted myself to the study and admiration of aesthetics, photography in particular. As a kid I was obsessed with Hollywood studio still pictures of movie stars of the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s…black and white portraits that achieve an impossible perfection of beauty while somehow exposing the soul within. Photographers such as George Hurrell and A.L.
Schafer created high art by their genius lighting and arrangements of a body, face and clothes to create a human landscape so breathtakingly beautiful they transcend the limits of portrait photography to become something more. Deeply inspired by these artists, I took up photography as a kid and won awards and even a college scholarship for my black and white portraits in high school, and I fantasized about owning my own photography studio where I could transform women into silver screen goddesses just like my idols did decades ago. After graduating high school I found work as a photographer at various portrait studios but was discouraged to find I was always expected to use the same four wooden poses for all clients in front of overly fake backgrounds.
Two years later, frustrated and unfulfilled, a man dressed all in white came into my studio, took a long look at me and offered to pay me double what I was making to drive his limousine. Caught at a weak moment I said yes, which is how I deviated from photography for 8 years to work as a private chauffeur and overpaid confidant to an eccentric real estate investor in Los Angeles. This millionaire who I’m sure would prefer to remain anonymous led an extravagant life based on his ideal composite of James Bond, Captain Kirk and Howard Hughes. His three story house was fully automated and could be programmed to turn on mood lights, jazz music and fire up the
Jacuzzi jets by telephone code from his limo if a date was going particularly well. His home interior and furnishings were all white, the limo was white on white, we dressed in all white – even my hair was platinum white, and everything had a checklist to verify absolute cleanliness. Instead of helping to manage his business, I was given such duties as building Star Trek Enterprise models with lights and sound, typing dictation of his secretly recorded conversations with girlfriends for analysis, and accompanying The Investor in helicopters that landed on high rise buildings in downtown Los Angeles to eat at penthouse restaurants. I was the Orange County Bond Girl.
But I couldn’t be a Bond Girl forever. I quit my odd but well paying gig with The Investor and opened my own portrait studio first in L.A. five years ago and now in Visalia with the retro name of Black Dahlia Photography; at last specializing in the vintage Hollywood studio portraits I’d always dreamed of doing plus head shots for models and actors. I started out small by photographing friends in my living room, which soon turned into a long waiting list of girlfriends that I photographed with makeshift lighting, antique deco furniture and home made headdresses to produce the look of old Hollywood style black and whites. I utilized my makeup expertise that evolved from years of mimicking the tricks used by
I moved to Visalia in 2004 to be with my fiancé John Schomp whom I married last October. I have found a home for my photography studio inside Main Street Mercantile, a large co-op antique store of which my husband is a partner. When clients repeatedly asked to purchase the vintage clothes I photographed them in, I was inspired to open Black
Dahlia Vintage Boutique last year in the same building downstairs. Staying true to my love for vintage Hollywood, Black Dahlia Vintage Boutique offers specialty items such as spectacular vintage gowns and accessories worn in Hollywood movies in the 30's to 50's straight from movie studio wardrobes, complete with certificates of authenticity. Items for sale include a jaw dropping gown previously owned by Ella Fitzgerald by Don Loper of Beverly Hills, a fur stole owned by Norma Shearer, a tiered satin gown owned by Dolores Del Rio, a satin cocktail dress owned by Ava Gardner or handbags owned by Mae West and Susan Hayward. The vintage boutique
is a labor of love - it keeps me in pretty clothes and I meet such fabulous people who also share a love of past decades. So between my vintage clothing and photography, I get to explore the past while living in the present! For more info click on the link below.
Hollywood makeup artists and personal sampling of hundreds of products, developing techniques to shave years and even weight off any lady who sat in my chair. That alone was enough to make me very popular! When word of mouth spread to women I didn’t know asking for their turn, it was irresistible that it was time to open Black Dahlia Photography for real. I purchased professional equipment, costume jewelry, antique headdresses and a vintage wardrobe in all sizes - and best of all my own business cards declaring myself a photographer.
