One woman is wearing nothing but a Marine dress uniform and hat. Another has her husband's dog tags dangling seductively from her teeth. A third woman lies enticingly on a bed, covered only by an American flag.
No, these aren't pin-up girls in a racy 2010 Military Girls Gone Wild calendar. These are wives and girlfriends whose significant others are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, sending some racy holiday cheer to their loved ones.
The photos are the work of Michele Parsley, an amateur photograph and Marine wife who set up a photo studio in her garage at Camp Pendleton.
"It's something that the guys actually enjoy, seeing their wife in these cami's or their dress blues," Parsley said.
Parsley, whose husband is assigned to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing based at Pendleton, started taking portraits of wives about a year ago. At first, her photos were of the straight-and-narrow -- family portraits to send to daddy overseas. But she started getting requests for pictures with skimpier outfits, too.
"I said no at first," she said. "Then it turned into 10 or 15 people asking me, and then I finally gave in."
As the outfits shrank, her business blossomed. Working with two other photographers, she's had over 150 "boudoir" sessions in four months, and now considers it her full-time job. She offers the sessions at rates much less than professional studios.
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"I did a little bit of research," she said. "The prices that they're going to be charged elsewhere are extremely high. They're not affordable for military."
Her business has gotten popular enough for Pendleton brass to take notice. On Saturday, her husband's command called, asking that she remove references to the base in advertisements for her business, she told the North County Times. She also said base officials were concerned about women wearing their husband's uniforms in the photos -- although officials told the paper that the only concern was the use of the base's name.
"The fact that she was advertising doing the work 'Aboard Camp Pendleton' was the concern because that implies that the base commanding officer endorses her business," said Maj. Jay Delarosa, a spokesman for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.
Parsley, who did not want to hurt her husband's career in the military, removed references to the base from her ads. But she hasn't stopped taking the pictures. And the steady stream of clients hasn't let up, either.
