Bunny Yeager

BUNNY YEAGER (1929 -2014).
"Lorena Miami 65". 1965.
Silver gelatin print on paper.
Presents studio label on the back.
Measurements: 25,5 x 20 cm.
Linnea Eleanor Yeager was born in Pennsylvania, although she moved to Florida when she was 17. She adopted the nickname "Bunny" from Lana Turner's character Bunny Smith in the 1945 film Week-End at the Waldorf. She graduated from Miami Edison High School and later enrolled at Coronet Modeling School and Agency. She won numerous local beauty pageants including, Queen of Miami, Florida Orchid Queen, Miss Trailercoach of Dade County, Miss Army & Air Force, Miss Personality of Miami Beach, Queen of the Sports Carnival and Cheesecake Queen of 1951. Yeager became one of Miami's most photographed models, appearing in over 300 newspapers and magazines. She designed and produced hundreds of bikinis when the two-piece swimsuit was a new fashion item and is credited with its popularity in the United States. Yeager got her start in photography by enrolling in an evening class at a vocational school in 1953. Her career as a professional photographer began when a photograph of Maria Stinger, taken for her first school assignment, was sold to Eye magazine. She became a technically skilled photographer noted, among other things, for her early use of the fill flash technique to lighten dark shadows. Yeager was one of the first photographers to shoot her models outdoors in natural light. He met Bettie Page in 1954 and took most of her photographs that year. During their brief collaboration, she took more than 1,000 photographs of Page. Along with photographer Irving Klaw, Yeager played a role in helping to make Page famous, particularly with her photos in Playboy magazine. Yeager was a very prolific and successful pin-up photographer in the 1950s and 1960s, so much so that her work was described as ubiquitous at the time.