Inked For Inspiration!

Meet the woman taking some of the sexiest photos on the Internet today.

- Ali Drucker

ADMIT IT: YOU’D THINK SHE’S GOT YOUR dream job. Alissa Brunelli always knew she wanted to be a photographer, but not all little girls who spent their childhood dressing up their neighbours and snapping their pictures grow to become prolific nude photographers. Brunelli’s work can be seen largely in Tattoo magazine and on SuicideGirls.com, a popular website that shows off alternative, pin-up style models. She has a unique ability to make you feel as though you’ve stumbled upon a private, erotic moment that the model secretly wanted to share with you, anyway.

But taking pictures of beautiful naked women isn’t all fun—it’s an incredibly involved process. We caught up with the photographer who’s shot over 1,500 scantily-clad ladies to get the lowdown on the importance of confidence, on-set horror stories and what it’s like to know thousands of guys are aroused by your art.

Your photos are pretty racy. Lots of gorgeous, often-naked, tattooed women. What is it that draws you to this particular subject matter?

I was working at a tattoo studio, and I like shooting girls in fashion and stuff like that in general, anyway. I met a girl who was a Suicide Girl who came into the shop to get tattooed. Basically, she was like, “You should shoot me for SuicideGirls” and I felt, “Oh my God! This is what I was meant to do.” And I pretty much started shooting nude completely from that point on. It was maybe in 2005.

What was it you liked so much about shooting nude girls?

It was a lot less intimidating than I first expected, and it’s a fun, intimate process where you get to know people. And it’s very weird and strange that you become friends with these people through shooting them naked. But, literally, every friend I have is a girl that I’ve shot.