So I got this idea to download all the photos from that famous Pirelli Calendar 2015 edition. You know, the one with all those supermodels looking incredible under natural light? Yeah, that one. Figured it’d make killer desktop wallpapers for my home office setup.
The Search Begins
Started simple – just typed “Pirelli Calendar 2015 photos download” into my regular web browser. Big mistake. First five sites that popped up looked sketchy as hell. One had so many pop-up ads that my antivirus software started screaming bloody murder. Closed that tab real fast before my laptop exploded.
Next I tried going directly to the Pirelli press site. Found an official page about the calendar, but guess what? All those gorgeous shots by Steven Meisel? Only tiny thumbnail versions available. Clicking “download” just led to press release PDFs about the shoot location in Cuba. Useless.
Getting Creative
Remembered some photographers share high-res stuff on image hosting sites. Went digging through forums where photo enthusiasts hang out. Found a thread mentioning specific keywords for finding those pics, like “Pirelli Cal” or “PC2015” with the photographer’s name. Smart trick!
Opened up a private browsing window and punched in those search terms. Boom! Someone had shared an album with watermarked previews. Not perfect, but better than nothing. Tried right-click saving – surprise surprise, they’d disabled image saving. Classic.
My workaround
- Took screenshots of the preview pages first
- Used snipping tool to grab individual images
- Ran everything through a free upscale tool I found
Quality wasn’t perfect but hey, you work with what you’ve got. Ended up with about 20 decent shots of Jourdan Dunn and Adriana Lima that didn’t look like pixelated garbage.
The Personal Angle
Funny thing is, I almost gave up halfway through. Then I remembered why I started this whole mess – my kid sister’s turning 21 next month and she’s obsessed with vintage fashion photography. Wanted to surprise her with a framed print from this exact calendar.
That kept me going through all the dead ends. Ended up at some old photography blog that had three full-size behind-the-scenes shots just sitting there. Jackpot! Grabbed those immediately. Could’ve kissed my monitor.
In the end? Got about 35 usable images after three hours of hunting. Made an archive folder called “Pirelli Gold” on my external drive. My sister’ll lose her mind when she sees the Candice Huffine beach shot printed big. Mission accomplished, even if it felt like hacking through jungle vines to get there.
