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It was Pamela Green who
first got, the then theatrical photographer, Harrison Marks involved in glamour
photography. She had been to him to have head shots taken of her when she was appearing as
a showgirl in a nearby West End theatre. The struggling young photographer needed
financial help at that time and recognising his talent with a camera Pamela offered to put
some money into his new business. They became partners and she persuaded him to try his hand at pin-up photography and posed as his first model. The new venture started early in 1954 when sets of five, postcard sized, black and white photographic prints of Pamela were made up in cellophane bags and sold through a bookshop in Newport Court, Soho, London's main red-light district at that time. The first sets sold for half-a-crown each. At a time when the few British publications which were orientated towards men were featuring photos of busty American film stars, such as Betty Grable, Veronica Lake and Rita Hayworth, showing a little cleavage under their one piece bathing costumes, even very tame photographs like the ones of Pamela shown here, were received with some enthusiasm by the red blooded men of Blighty. The first photo sets proved a great success and were followed by many others. Clearly the market could be expanded by recruiting other models to pose for new sets.
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| In response to demand,
Pamela and George started to introduce topless photo sets and the demand grew in leaps and
bounds. By the middle of 1954 they were producing sets of full nudes, albeit strategically
retouched ones. By that time a second bookshop in Charing Cross Road was also selling
significant quantities of the photo sets. Their brief Pin-up era had come to an end and
their future clearly lay in 'figure studies'. In September 1954, Pamela and George headed for the Scilly Isles to do their first location shoot. It was at this time that Pamela created her provocative looking red head character, Rita Landre. The nude sets quickly grew so popular that they had to start employing help to keep up with demand. By the end of 1955 the sets were selling in outlets all over Soho and through other distributors in the provinces. The names of Harrison Marks and Pamela Green were rapidly becoming established as the leaders in their field and their photographs were in regular demand from other publishers as well as the general public. In 1957 they formed Kamera Publications Ltd., in order to produce Kamera, their first printed publication, and the first issue was published in June 1957. |
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