K&N’s Miss May, Ashley Dailey, is a Camera-Ready Traveler

THAT’S A WRAP – This is the final shot that ran in the calendar.

Was this her first photo shoot? Or had Ashley Michelle Dailey stepped into an impromptu extra role in “Game of Thrones”

A DAILEY DOUBLE – Ashley Michelle Dailey said she loves bringing a modern pin-up look to her modeling. Put her next to a vintage car in a vintage wardrobe and you’ve got the perfect combination of look, style and speed.

Dailey, who goes by Ashley Michelle as her professional name, answered a call from the proverbial friend of a friend, who needed models for a clothing designer’s shoot. There was, however, a little plot/wardrobe twist to what Dailey would be modeling:

Steel-boned corsets. Straight out of your favorite Renaissance fair, Shakespearian play, or hit cable TV series. But now, it’s straight out of Dailey’s repertoire.

“I’ve developed this obsession with corsets and lingerie over the years,” she said. “I’ve done a lot of work with that over the years, as well as tattoos. The man I’m seeing is a piercer and manager of a tattoo shop and I’ve done a lot of promotional work for his shop.”

Well, that explains why the soon-to-turn 23-year-old was in the middle of a move from Winchester, near Temecula, to Waco, Texas – where her boyfriend’s parlor is – then to join her retired parents in Nashville. It explains the face of her rescue pit-bull, Kain, the tattoo of which adorns her left shoulder (“So when I’m traveling, he’s always with me…”). And it explains why Dailey is so versatile in front of the camera.

For her K&N shoot, where she posed with fellow Miss May Shawnna Sharmayne, Dailey went back in time – this time, to the pin-up days of the 1940s. No, Dailey didn’t appear on the nose cone of a B-17 Flying Fortress – although if you jumped in the wayback machine, she looked like she could have – but next to a hot-rod in a bustier at the Motte Car Museum in Menifee, California. It seamlessly meshed with Dailey’s comfort level in front of the camera, where her timeless look and passion for period outfits that bring that look out were on full, vivid display.

PUTTING THE ‘HOT’ IN ‘HOT-ROD’ – Ashley Michelle Dailey has been the subject of not only two tattoos, but an oil portrait painted by a friend of hers that appeared in an art show. She now owns the painting.

“I remember it was a really hot day and they had a lot of really cool cars,” she said. “They just said they would have a lot of different cars and to dress like a pin-up with a modern twist. I was absolutely comfortable with that.

“It took a while because there was a lot involved here. We shot a couple different cars, I changed outfits twice and we changed the cars a few times to get different angles and different views. There was a lot involved, but it was really fun. There was a lot of energy and never a moment where there wasn’t something going on. Everyone who was there had a job and they knew what they were doing. It was awesome.”

Speaking of awesome, that pretty much describes the amount of miles Dailey has traveled in her nearly 23 years. This move east is her seventh in the last two years, a mind-boggling number even for a product of two military parents who bounced back and forth between Northern and Southern California throughout much of Dailey’s youth.

After graduating a year early from high school in 2010, Dailey migrated to cosmetology school, where she learned soon after getting her license that doing other people’s hair wasn’t nearly as fun as doing her own for a shoot.

“I felt like it was the creative equivalent of sitting behind a desk and I didn’t want to sit behind a desk,” she said. “I didn’t want to be in a salon. I liked sales and marketing and the modeling, so I figured I’d go back to school and major in marketing.”

Meanwhile, Dailey was finding herself behind a camera more than behind a desk. Her Instagram page has prompted everything from more modeling gigs to an oil portrait of her painted by an artist friend who featured the painting in an art show before giving it to Dailey.

If that wasn’t enough Dailey, well, Kain the Pitbull isn’t the only family member who is a tattoo subject.

“I’ve had two tattoo artists use me as a subject for their clients,” she said. “It’s amazing every time to see what they do with their finished products.

“I love modeling. I love working with new people. When I’m actually shooting, I get into this zone and nothing else exists. I’m doing what I love. When I model and through my passion for this, I can inspire other people’s artwork and that’s amazing.”