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LA photographer Danielle Emerick is well known for her stylized pin-up art, especially of super star Dita Von Teese. She took some time to speak with us about her work with the lovely ladies of pin-up.

Sez G: You've done a lot of work with Dita, she's the main model on your site, and your photographs of her have appeared in numerous publications. Would you consider her your muse? What's your relationship with her like?

Danielle Emerick: Shooting Dita was a lot of fun, and I did have a lot of success from those shoots, but I wouldn't call her my muse. There are so many beautiful girls out there that it wouldn't be fair to call just one my muse. I don't have much contact with her now, she is very busy.

EZ: What's your definition of pin-up?

DE: That's a hard question, I guess in the general sense it is a flirty picture of a hot girl that one would want to put on their wall.

EZ: A lot of your models wear flowers in their hair, lingerie from the past century, gloves, corsets and lace. Who directs the costume concept, you or the model, and how does that play out?

DE: I usually choose what the models wear from a combination of my wardrobe and theirs. I am very picky about the colors of the lingerie and how they match the surroundings.

EZ: You're based in Hollywood. Where are you from originally and how did you end up there?

DE: I was born and raised in Los Angeles, I moved to Hollywood for a job that I had at a magazine publishers. I am still here because I have rent control…otherwise, I would be somewhere less sleazy.

EZ: When did you get started in photography and how did it evolve into shoots of glamorous and seductive women?

DE: I started shooting my friends for my photo classes in high school. It just happens that I have really hot friends.

EZ: Hell yeah, you do! What's your preferred setting for a shoot? A studio, a bedroom, outdoors….?

DE: I like to shoot in studios the best, but really nice hotels and houses are good also. I am not a huge fan of shooting outside because it is so difficult to control the lighting.

EZ: You say on your site that your day job doesn't allow you to get in the darkroom often. What do you do to pay the bills?

DE: I do freelance photography stuff for more boring pursuits, and I do some catalog layout. I usually have a few things going at a time.

EZ: You shoot a lot of full-time fetishers. What's your relationship to the fetish world?

DE: I have a pretty casual relationship with the fetish world. I used to be more involved, going to clubs and stuff, but I have since become more focused on work over the past few years. I love fetish fashion, but I don't take the scene too seriously.

EZ: What's next for you?

DE: My photos of Lolita and Tigerlily will be used to illustrate fiction in the January 2005 issue of Taboo magazine. I am also going to keep working on putting up a paysite.