Vintage Nudes, Restored

Two days ago I got a very good marketing email. This man pegged it, with brevity, clarity, simplicity and most importantly, with being on target about something I’m actually interested in here at Eros Blog, which is vintage nude photographs:

Hi!

I wanted to share a personal project that I thought you might like. A few years ago I started restoring nude 1950s pinups – I posted the restorations and the backstory at www.50nudes.com. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Cheers!

The only reason this is a “very good” marketing email instead of a “perfect” marketing email is the “personal project” terminology. While doubtless true — the restoration work is obviously a labor of love – the fellow is selling fine art prints of his work. I don’t think our man was trying to fudge that obvious commercial fact, but to make this the truly perfect marketing email, he might perhaps have omitted the word “personal”. But that’s just a style point; the judges at this point are arguing about whether it’s a 9.8 or a perfect 10.

His restoration work itself is beautiful, as these before-and-after details will show you:

I love that he’s included nice scans of his originals for comparison to the restorations, too.

On the other hand, I heartily dislike the fact that he’s blasted his logo across the originals, thus despoiling artifacts that are not his own creative work and appearing to claim something that’s not his to claim. But that’s a sin virtually everyone in the vintage photo business commits when they go online. It’s also a recognized peeve of mine, that I can and will be crochety about as a vintage image collector, without investing my cranky reaction with too much emotional weight.