Sven Boqvist - Paris & Cote d'Azur 1957

About a year ago I did a blog post called The Penn Pals (you can read it here). This is a project by photographer and Photoshop wizard Pelle Piano, in which he created a fake book based on newly found photographs taken by the fake photographer Sven Boqvist in 1955. Several made up persons were featured in the book, and I got the pleasure of posing as the imaginary ballerina Tatiana Baronova - sister of Irina Baronova, who actually was a real ballerina back in the day.

Now Mr Piano has created a new book - Paris & Cote d´Azur - with more of Sven Boqvist´s photos. This time the story takes place at the Cannes Film Festival that took place in 1957. Here Sven meets both old and new friends who end up in front of his camera - one of them being Tatiana, who he's a bit infatuated by... This meant I got to portray this fictional ballerina again. The shoot took place in Pelle Piano's studio, against a blue screen. Before this Pelle had been to France and photographed the backgrounds he then inserted me in. And here is the result!

The Wall Dance.

At Versailles.

Sven and Tatiana at a museum.

Weird to see my back without a tattoo...

While in Paris Tatiana was also painted by a famous artist, as you can see in the pic above. For more info about The Penn Pals, and this new project Paris & Cote d´Azure, please go here!

Photo: Pelle Piano

The Penn Pals

Came home from my little burlesque trip to Rome at 3 am this morning. Of course I'll tell you all about that soon. But until I'm done writing those posts, here is something else...

Recently I got the honor of being put on the cover of a book - a book that doesn't really exist... This book, the story behind it, and the web site made to promote it, is a project created by the very inventive photographer, retoucher and web designer Pelle Piano, and is called The Penn Pals. The made up story behind this "book" is that the photos of the fictive photographer Sven Boqvist were thought to have been lost in a fire. Now, fifty years later, they have been found though. And this book is a compilation of these "lost" images, together with the stories about the persons portrayed - whom Sven Boqvist met during his travels in the 50s.

One of the characters Sven met and photographed in New York, in 1955, was the Russian born ballerina Tatiana Baronova, sister of Irina Barolova. Irina was a real ballet dancer, but in this project I got to portray her made up sister. And here are the photos Sven (or in real life - Pelle Piano) took of me/Tatiana...

All photos were taken in Mr Piano's home studio, against a blue screen, and then photoshopped into lovely surroundings by this talented man. I love shooting with him! Getting to see the final pictures, with the plain blue background magically replaced by amazing backgrounds is always so exciting!

Of course I'm not the only person portrayed as a fictional character in this "book". Go ahead and follow this link to The Penn Pals, and discover the rest. If I didn't know it was all a scam, I would believe this story was true. It's very well made!

All photos taken by Pelle Piano.