A Woman to Know: Bunny Yeager
It was like us doing a dance together. — Bunny Yeager
(Bunny with Bettie Page, image via Sin City Gallery)
After posing as a pinup throughout the 40s and 50s, Bunny turned the lens on herself -- and transformed the art of erotic photography. She began shooting nude and nearly-nude portraits for men's magazines like Penthouse, Playboy and Eye (she pitched Playboy most vociferously because "I heard they pay more than anyone else"). She launched her career as an erotic art director, designing sets and counting legendary models like Bettie Page among her subjects. But, she always insisted, her photos weren't "pornography" -- they were celebrations of the female body.
"I'm not doing it to titillate anybody's interest," she explained. "I want to show off how beautiful my subjects are, whether it's a cheetah or a live girl or two of them together."
Add to your library list:
How I Photograph Myself (Bunny Yeager)
Flirts of the Fifties (Bunny Yeager)
Bunny Yeager's Darkroom (Petra Mason)
Bombshells: Glamour Girls of a Lifetime (Steve Sullivan)
Read more:
Bunny Yeager, Pinup Portraitist, dies at 85 (The New York Times)
The real Bettie Page reveals herself in a new documentary (The Sun-Sentinel)
The iconic pinup girl turned photographer (The Huffington Post)
Revealing images of Bettie Page helped define art of erotic photography (The Washington Post)
The notorious Bunny Yeager (Boca Magazine)
See more:
Self-portraits of the woman who made Bettie Page famous (Los Angeles Magazine)
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