me and a model were discussing possibly shooting together, and her niche is pinup art.  are there some pointers that you can give me from a photographer's perspective that would make a shoot look like it has a 1950's era pinup look?  she showed me a few 50's era print ads, and said this was the look that she was interested in achieving.  after i studied the images for a few minutes, i told her that it looked to me like the shots were taken with one light, and that to me it just looked like they were using the cameras from that period.  i didn't think that would be too difficult to reproduce.

High Key or Low Key samples are you talking about... COLOR or B+W
I am better on the B+W side for looks  Shooting Digitial or Film Who shoots film??
Implied nude or period outfits for clothing???

wwWOW

she's going to do mostly era (hence 50's) style pinup with clothing.  i would guess black and white since i don't think color was out at the time, was it???

basically what i'd like to know, what SHOULD I DO from a technical aspect top make the result of the shoot look like pinup art from the 50's era.  should i speed up the film to get extra grain?  should i use some old azz light bulbs so the lighting looks prehistoric, etc...

she complained that her last shoot intended for a pinup 50's era look wound up looking more goth.  so she proceeded to tell me how i needed to make sure the shoot was pinup, without giving me the slightest detail about what she was talking about.  i really think she was spinning my wheel and being nostalgic at the same time

did she tell you why she thought the imges from the last shoot were too goth looking or show you the images?

It was probably too high contrast, most of the older pin up style shots i have seen have a wider range of grays and and not very much pure black. As far as the camera setings go higher iso for noise wouldnt hurt also vineting isnt a bad thing when you are going for a more period look since the technology of the time didnt get rid of those things. I have a pin up shoot coming up myself and i hae been working on techniques to get it to look more like what she wants the thing i would sugest is get your lighs out and try to emulate what she showed you.

I sometimes feel the same way about what makes it pin-up. The style of the model or the way it is photographed? My advice is search the net for Betti Page and all the similar 50s era photos and you'll see. More than the lighting and set up it is the angles it is photographed as well as the way she poses. There are a few classic pin-up poses. But mostly pin-up covers the whole body. Don't frame to leave a part of the body out, except for close ups and a few headshots. Use at least 85mm or higher and stand back. Wide angle seems to be the post-punk era look and not pin-up. Still, i'm not a pin-up expert, but it's my best advice...

Koke...

There is a book called Bernard of Hollywood which I bought a few months ago which has vintage pinup shots he did as well as small diagrams for almost every shot showing where and how he placed each light. You can also look at Bernardofhollywood.com if it is still up.

I can only tell you how my dad did it in the early to mid 50s... he shot mostly 4x5 press cameras, Crown Graphics etc. which are available for not very much these days used.  While color did exist, most people were shooting B&W.  The small studio guys and the camera clubs were often using #2 (500 watt) photofloods in polished aluminum reflectors, and you probably want faster film since the output of those is limited.  And I do recommend film, there's no way you're going to exactly match what they did with B&W film by shooting digital.  You might be forced to shoot 35mm or medium format unless you happen to have a sheet film scanner sitting around, but there were plenty of folks shooting with Rollei TLRs or Leicas then.

There were also a lot of darkroom tricks which were common then but are seldom practiced today.  The vignette effect seen in so many old prints is a simple burning in of the outer edges to darken the corners.  Studios often stretched a bit of nylon stocking behind the enlarger lens, which gives a peculiar softening effect without really losing the sharpness of the eyes.  Retouching was done on the big negatives with a soft pencil in the pre-photoshop days.

There's more, but I was born after he stopped shooting pro so only know what I've been told.  There is a characteristic tonal range which I assume is an artifact of the film/developer combinations of the time, maybe with the uncoated or single coated lenses of the day contributing.  Not sure if I could even describe it well, much less mimic it.  I'd say track down some old magazines and try to figure out what they did and why.