From MySpace selfies to Dita Von Teese, Jessica Eisner is bringing sultry back – just don’t call her a pin-up photographer
When photographer Jessica Eisner sent her portfolio to the email in Dita Von Teese’s Instagram bio, she didn’t expect to see a reply the next morning, let alone from Dita herself. Sixteen days later, Jessica was having lunch with Dita and Dita’s cat in her retro Hollywood home.
“I was really lucky I had some spare cash, and it was just the right timing. I went to her house, and it was really chill,” Jessica told me over an evening chai at her local in Plenty Valley.
Surprisingly, a woman best known for her glamorous, defiantly sexy photography was laid back in a pair of black jeans and a hoodie.
Her photos are bright, dramatic and sensual – well, “sultry” is the word she prefers to use. The models are often close to the barrel of the camera, making stop-in-your-tracks eye contact with you.
And when I tell Jessica that her photos make me feel like I’m intruding on something intimate, she laughs and says: “Even guys are like, is my wife around?”
But one word you shouldn’t use to describe her photos is “pin up”.
“When people think ‘pin up’, they think cheesy, really posed images, and really fake-looking. I don’t like that style,” she says.
Jessica usually shoots indoors, like hotel rooms or in their own home. Her photoshoot of Dita Von Teese was in Dita’s own home, for instance.
“And she just like let me walk around the place. She was really welcoming. We had lunch halfway through, and there was a bit of everything on the table, even her cat.
“I used to always dream about shooting Dita, thinking it would take a few years to get there. Probably now the top of my list would be Gwen Stefani. She’s like the OG rockabilly chick.”
Most photographers I’ve met have a knack for immediately putting you at ease, and Jessica was no different. But for her, making models comfortable is especially important when they’re draped in lingerie, or simply nothing but perfect lighting and a couple of nipple tassles.
As a former model herself, she works hard to make her subjects feel comfortable.
“I give constant feedback to the models I shoot. I think I say ‘YAS’ a lot. It’s a really bad habit now, but it always makes them crack up. I get really excited and squeal randomly, especially if it’s THE shot.
“Also, it’s just me and the model, not a whole team of people, so they don’t feel interrogated. I don’t put any music on, there’s no wine involved, nothing like that, no seducing in that way. It’s just me being me towards them, like how I am with you right now, just talking.”
Jessica doesn’t give much direction either, because direction makes the models stiff and awkward. It’s written all over their face and in their eyes. She says it looks like they’re trying to recreate an image they’ve seen online, but it just doesn’t work.
“You have to catch them off guard, catch them in the moment.”
So at only 26 years old, with A-list names in her wide portfolio and six trips to the US so far, where did it all start?
“To be honest, I think it’s partly because of MySpace and wanting to get a good shot for that. I know this sounds weird, but I’d take a lot of self portraits, and it made me enjoy photography because it made me learn how to take photos and experiment with lighting,” she explained.
“It wasn’t until I got a really cool art teacher in year 11 who made me realise that what I had in front of me could be used as photography.”
What was in front of her was a childhood surrounded by old-school hot rodders, starting with her dad.
“All my life I’ve been around garages, going to car shows and being dragged along. I hated it because that’s all we did on the weekends. I had no interest in it back then,” Jessica says.
For Jessica’s final year 12 art piece, she drew the Russian-American model and burlesque performer, Mosh. “I picked her as a year 12 final art piece. Fast forward a few years, I go to LA and photograph her for the first time. We work together every year since I first went there.”
Model and Burlesque performer, Mosh.
After year 12, she endured just three months of university at RMIT before dropping out. She walked to class one day, stood in front of the door, then turned around and never looked back.
“I don’t want to learn how to take photos the way everyone else is being taught. I want to be different. And I feel like a lot of people, when they study, they lose their spark because it’s like a chore. And they’re like, ‘eh, I’m over it now’.”
Perhaps the model she shoots the most is Stefania Ferrario, a fellow Australian, curve queen and “drop the plus” activist. Stefania is also the Australian face of Dita Von Teese’s lingerie line. And for Jessica, she’s down for anything.
Australian model and activist Stefania Ferrario.
“Recently I photographed her with a Betty Page wig, changing up her distinctive look. She’s just a really nice girl and a good friend of mine,” Jessica says.
“She’s one of the rare model friends I have that’s interested in hanging out with me and not just working with me. She’s got a good heart.”