Rockabetty Studios

Hi all! A lovely, long-anticipated parcel arrived this weekend- my photos from my 50s pin-up shoot! Woo-hoo!

To be honest, thanks to the post, they were very long-anticipated. I sometimes wake up in the night worried that our postie has lost something really important like information about a huuge Premium Bond win or something. But hey, I do have anxiety so that's par the course. Except, finally, I have been proven right: there is something shoddy about the post round our way. Grrr. And they always strike with fun things like ebay purchases and lovely photos... never bills or junk mail. Double grrr.



Rockabetty Studios is a portrait studio run by photographer and photography teacher Lex Fleming, specialising in vintage-style photoshoots from simple pin-up styling (which I opted for) to more revealing 'boudior' shoots. Lex was inspired to create Rockabetty after hearing about a boudoir shoot her mum had been on! "If there are photo shoots out there for my mum to be in the nuddy, why are there not companies offering photoshoots to be a pinup girl?"

Pinup style photography has become incredibly popular recently, and there are other companies out there, but I am glad I chose Rockbetty for my shoot. After all, it's an investment- both in terms of cost and because I wouldn't want to look mingin' on my mantlepiece for the rest of my days! I selected Rockabetty for three main reasons:

1. As a mobile studio, they come to your home. In the end, I did visit Lex for my shoot, but regardless of which home, the home environment is comfortable and laid back compared to a formal studio. My changing in a cold back room days are long over, I want a luxury shoot- not the 'reality' experience of being chilled to the bone and exposed to the eyes of everyone at work in a large studio. Communal changing rooms and standing around a big studio in pants is for drama students and theatrical types and I have not been one of them for well over a decade. Not anymore, it's home comforts all the way! Rockabetty Studios even plied me with bubbly booze, which I never turn down- they are all about making you feel comfortable, glamorous and secure during the experience.
2. Their shoots are reasonably priced. My package came in at £175 including 4 full edited (and boy do I need that) shots on disk. Some other photographers I looked at charge up to £300 for the shoot alone, plus costume, plus you cannot buy the images and must instead plump for their overpriced products. The content varies wildly with these more costly packages- some are clearly worth it for those lucky few that can afford it others offer nothing more that puff and self-promotion (you can't put a price on memories etc') - but the bottom line is, this wasn't my wedding album, it's 4 personal pictures of me in a pretty (revealing) costume: for which I think £175 is an excellent price. The level of service and product for under £200 is extremely good value- costumes, make-up, hair, props, editing... superb! And the customer service Lex provides is just so helpful and personal. As I mentioned before, the post let us down and she was incredibly professional, sorting it out with minimal fuss.
3. Their shoots are good quality. From start to finished photograph: costumes are in good condition, with a choice of vintage and repro items, make-up and hair are period-appropriate and applied by a professional artist, the photos themselves are beautifully finished. Even once I had secured my price-range and area, I did hunt around looking at some other studios. Some packages were.... well... tacky. A little too 'glamour', the make-up not quite proper for the time/genre, the skirts short in the first place so you lost the cheeky 'oops my skirt's blown up' factor. You know what I mean: the difference between a 50s style prom dress from Coast and one from Krisp (not that I don't shop at Krisp- I love a short skirt...just not for classic, memory-days!). Rockabetty is classy: no pressure to display underwear or body parts (unless you want to- they have a cheeky bridal package for that!). The shots look classy, classic and professional.

His Lordship didn't recognise me at first, in the photos, because they looked too real: his fave pin-up shots but with me in them (not a photo of me looking 'a bit pin-up')... took him a few moments to adjust bless him! Anyway, I'm thinking this one for framing, I'm well into nautical stuff at the moment and it makes me look (shock of the year) TALL!!! Yay, 'hello sailor' as The Muskerbeers will no doubt say.

If you would like to book a RockaBetty shoot, check out their website here or on Facebook or Twitter.