Maybe I'm a little late to the party, but I'm totally loving this lace around the eyes thing! I saw a few pics in my Pinterest feed, then had to search for more. This dramatic and fanciful look would be so perfect for a glam party, or divine for a burlesque stage look. Or what about rocking this gorgeous and dreamy eye in a boudoir photo shoot? Smashing. Look at all of these beautiful eyes!

There are many ways to achieve this fantastic look:
- adhering actual lace around the eye
- using lace as a stencil to paint eye makeup through
- using a temporary tattoo with a lace design
- going super DIY and drawing your own lace design with eyeliner

Chanel made a big splash with the look on the Spring 2013 runway. Check out some of Chanel's lacey eye pics on chicprofile.com. 

Most of the photos above are recent, but one is a surprisingly vintage pic from Vogue magazine. Can you spot it?

To get a better look at all of these gorgeous pics, check out my Lacey Eye Pinterest board! To those unfamiliar with Pinterest (if there's anyone out there who hasn't been completely pulled in by Pinterest's delicious eye candy yet), clicking on the individual photos will take you to their original sources, some of which are tutorials. A cursory YouTube search for "lace eye tutorial" yields many video tuts as well.

I'd love to know: Have you tried this look? Let us know in the comments. Which technique did you use? Share a pic if you have one!

Listen up, because this is the post where I give away all my burlesque show photography secrets! Okay, well it turns out there aren’t any secrets in photography, just better results by people who pay attention, learn, and constantly strive to do better work.

The Most Difficult Lighting
Photography is about capturing light, and this type of shoot has got to be one of the most difficult because there just isn’t enough light in a club, ever. In our online store here, we have all these great photos of our products that are made to look like they’re shot in a club or an alley or whatnot. It turns out that they are all shot with studio flash kits that basically make the sun look like a dim bulb. But in a club, you are working with much much less light.



The two things that work for me are a very fast lens and forcing a fast shutter speed. Here’s a bit more detail about each of these:

Fast Lens - This refers to a lens that has an aperture setting somewhere between f1.0 and f2.0. Most run of the mill lenses won’t go below f2.8, but there are plenty that do; you just have to find one. The difference between how much light hits the back of the camera at f1.8 compared with f2.8 is HUGE, and with that extra light you can start to record enough information to make a decent photo.


Shutter Speed - I constantly see burlesque show photography that is blurry, and in my mind that looks bad. This is because the shutter speed was too slow and the camera or the subject were moving ever so slightly when the photo was taken. Photographers will often set their camera to “aperture priority” so that they can force the lens to stay open at the lowest f-stop (e.g. f2.8). The camera will then try to calculate an appropriate shutter speed to get a decent shot. It’s always too slow. Here’s what I do. Set the camera to “Shutter Speed Priority” and set it to 1/120. The camera will try to find an appropriate aperture to get a good exposure and almost always select the lowest aperture. I find that with digital, the exposure is in fact too low, BUT it’s enough light to work with, and you can compensate with a little adjustment in a photo editing program such as Photoshop.


Composition
This is where you get to be creative. People generally don’t want to see shots of isolated body parts, so I usually go for full body shots. People also have an innate sense of visual balance. If you always center your subject in the photo, it may look good, but if you move the camera just a little bit, maybe capture something else along the edge of the shot, the shot could be magic. I learned the rule of thirds, and constantly work to make my in-camera composition interesting. But of course, you can always adjust the composition later by cropping the picture if you didn’t quite compose it perfectly in-camera.


Distracting People and Things
Any person or thing can photobomb your burlesque dancer and ruin the photo. So I’m constantly watching a performance through the lens and seeing things come in and out of the shot, waiting for the right moment to click. I usually identify distracting things before the show even gets started, and at clubs, there’s alway tons of junk on the stage behind the dancers, and tall noggins in the front row. I just try to identify areas and things to avoid getting into my shots.


The Performers
Okay, I’m not a professional by any means, so I take burlesque show photography lightly, and think of my goal as promoting the performers. I would do that anyway if I was a pro, because it helps me get good shots. The two things I think about while snapping shots are:

- What would they (the dancers) want to see of themselves?
- How can I showcase their performance?

Flattery will get you....into some shows with a press pass!  :)


Editing Your Work
My editor is my wife, the other half of Kuhmillion Lingerie. She happens to be a trained and experienced graphic designer who understands art and composition. She also understands the value of editing a project. When I’ve done a shoot, the first thing she does is narrow down a “keepers” pile to about 10% of everything shot. By the final Flickr gallery, we’re down to 30-40 photos at most. But they’re the best of the shoot and most people, including the performers, don’t have the time to flip through much more than that.


I hope my rambling is helpful to some out there who are struggling to take decent photos at a burlesque show or any performance at a club. Good luck!

-Patrick 

 
Who wants glitter lips? We do! We do! Just in time to finish off your Halloween burlesque costume. Local burlesque starlet Lilly White from Austin's Bat City Bombshells was kind enough to share her technique, and sit with us for a photo session.

Here's what you'll need to get perfect red glitter lips like Lilly's:
A red lip liner pencil - your favorite brand & shade 
Red lipstick - your favorite brand & shade
Q-tips 
Ben Nye LiquiSet
Ben Nye Sparklers loose cosmetic glitter (Lilly used MD-2 Fire Red)
Ben Nye Final Seal(matte makeup sealer)

Lilly started out fresh faced to show you how dramatic the transition to glitter lips can be.

First, apply your lip liner.
  


Fill in your lips with the liner as well.  

Next, apply your red lipstick, then blot.

Now, take a Q-tip and dip it in the LiquiSet, and then into the glitter. This is important so you don't mess up your container of glitter, and also keeping your fingers out of the glitter keeps it germ-free.

Apply the glitter from the Q-tip onto your lips. When you're done, blot your lips lightly to remove excess. 

Now you just have to seal it. Spray a little Final Seal on your finger and then dab onto your lips.
 
Let it dry and you'll have glitter lips that won't quit!
 
Special thanks to the lovely and glamorous Lilly White for helping us with this tutorial. Be sure to check out her next show with The Bat City Bombshells, coming up this month!

-Kuhmillion

Lilly LaFleur and Her Burlesque Fan Dance

We recently caught a Black Widow Burlesque show here in Austin where troupe member Lilly LaFleur performed a wonderful fan dance. I loved it so much that I asked her to share her approach to this iconic burlesque dance, and maybe give us a few tips on how to get started. Most of this post is quoted straight from the dreamy french flower herself. Here are the main things to focus on:

 
The Fans
Fans are specialty items and range from cheap to super expensive. These are the focus of the performance, so the more you can spend on them, the better. Lilly says, “I did some research as to how one makes feather fans. I scoured sites like Etsy to see if I could buy a kit (found one for around $150 or less), or even a fully assembled set, but man they are expensive; about $300 a set. Lucky for me my fellow troupe member, Ginger Snaps, let me borrow her fans. They were perfect, and exactly the color I wanted: pink!”

The Music
Take plenty of time to pick just the right music. Do some research and watch as many fan dance videos as you can. This dance really comes alive when the movement of the fans and the mood of the music combine perfectly.

“For me, I’m usually first inspired by music...that is just how I operate. I credit that to my twenty years of dancing; the music is so important for me. I look for something that I can envision a routine to... it has to have the right mood.”
- Lilly LaFleur

For her latest piece, she took inspiration and the music from Mon Truc En Plumes as performed by the French legend Zizi Jeanmaire:

The Costume
The burlesque costume choice is second only in importance to fan selection. The most important thing to remember when selecting the right costume is that you will only have one hand to use to remove it! Lilly adds, “When workshopping a new number, I prefer to have as many costume pieces decided on as I can; it helps me think about how much time I have to take things off, what accents in the music I want to use, and how I can incorporate parts of my costume into the routine. I knew I needed a simple, easy to remove costume that could come off effortlessly with one hand since I’d be holding my fans in the other.”

Choreography / Technique
Lilly admits that when she was just starting out with the burlesque fan dance, she “had no clue what to do with those fans. I just started messing around with them to see how they felt, and at first my hands and arms would get so tired, but you get used to it.” Bonus: your arms will get nicely toned! She adds, “I had kind of a showgirl idea in my head, so I wanted to use the fans in a way that was glamorous. Thank God for YouTube! I looked up so many feather fan performances, both burlesque and showgirl, and it helped a lot to see how those girls were using their fans, and the different ways they could be manipulated. It gave me a lot of ideas. I worked a lot with the music and the fans. I would improvise and figure out sections that worked with the music, and just start to piece it together. If you have use of a studio, that’s ideal so you can actually see what the fans look like [in the mirror], and it gives you the opportunity to play around and see what you like and what you don’t.”

We can attest that the burlesque fan dance is a real show stopper! It’s truly an iconic number that can be in every burlesque show. It takes a lot of thought and hard work to pull this one off, but it’s so worth it. Don’t forget Lilly’s basic advice: Research and study the pros; find the music that speaks to you; pick the right style of burlesque costume; and work, work, work on that choreography! You’re sure to be a hit.

Many thanks to Lilly LaFleur from Black Widow Burlesque for sharing her fan dance tips!

We know that each and every burlesque dancer works his/her butt off to put on a successful show. But there are just a few little things that I think can hold back a great performer. As an audience member, you get a whole different perspective on this art form, and sometimes you can see that a tweak here or there could make all the difference in the world. Ever notice that at a burlesque show, one performer may get polite applause, while another completely brings down the house? Here are a few things I’ve noticed:

 

1. Forgetting About the Audience
I know this seems like a silly thing to mention. How can someone in a burlesque outfit, on a stage, in front of a club full of people forget about the audience that is staring them down? I know it takes some serious guts to get up there, but what I mean is that the best burlesque performers realize that the audience is part of the performance and remain engaged with them throughout the entire number. You can tell that some of the best dancers are constantly gauging the audience reaction and playing off their energy during the show. I think it’s a talent that some dancers just have more or less of, but the difference between someone simply playing in front of the audience and someone playing TO the audience can be quite dramatic. A great example of someone who’s got that gift is Coco Lectric of the Jigglewatts. If you get the opportunity to see her perform, take it!

2. Poor Musical Selection or Awkward Transitions
Sometimes I’ll watch a burlesque number that’s part of a themed show, and I’ll think, “How does this piece fit into the show?” I’m sure that because burlesque performers usually have a dance background, they find music all the time that they really connect with. Choreographing the perfect number to a favorite song is awesome, but it’s stellar if it fits in neatly with the theme of the show.

Another awkward musical situation that often arises is when a performance spans a medley of two or more songs. I love it when a number has different parts, costume changes and mood changes, but those transitions between songs need to be smooth and subtle. It can be very jarring for the audience if musical transitions are not handled with care. Any burlesque dancer is wise to seek input and opinions from fellow troupe members, and even her sound person if possible, about her music and transitions.

 

3. Lack of Eye Contact
This is the biggie! Everyday we communicate with other people using our eyes. Glances, winks and stares can say volumes about what we really think. Burlesque is no different, and of course the performer is communicating sexual cues and all sorts of things. Sometimes, I see a burlesque dancer with no chemistry with the audience, and it’s because she maintains a distant stare and just has no eye contact. Good eye contact is such an important detail that should not be overlooked. Frequent readers of Lingerie Unlaced may recall who I think has the best eyes in burlesque. Many of our favorite performers in Austin are great at playing to the audience with their eyes, and it always makes the performance more interesting to watch.

So there you have it, my advice on the top three burlesque performance mistakes to avoid, from an audience member’s perspective. Keep these things in mind when creating your routines and of course on performance night, and you’re sure to have the audience hanging on your every move. Wow ‘em and make them feel like you’re performing just for them, and you’ll keep ‘em coming back for more!

-Patrick