Recently, I had a wonderful opportunity to shoot some fashion photography. The Seattle Fashion Week [link] had their Student Fashion Designer Competition.
I was worried initially about the difficulties of shooting this event if using a flash was not allowed. But, fortunately, the event organizers did not mind. There were in fact 3 other photographers and 2 videographers there. One of the photographers I met was from Sound Magazine.
You can see some of my photographs here:
This was an incredibly fun photo shoot. Prior to the event, I contacted the event organizers via email regarding applying for a press press. Unfortunately, I received no response. However, I still attended the event, hoping that I would be able to acquire some good photographs. When I arrived at the event, I just unpacked my camera body and my 70-200 2.8L IS lens, and found one of the event organizers and asked him if I could go upstairs (backstage). He asked for my business card and then said it was ok if I went upstairs, which was very cool, and I imagine quite lucky. One important thing to note, is to always do research on the organizers and organization behind the event you want to shoot. From my research, I recognized one of the faces at the event as one of the organizers. This way I didn’t have to go asking around for who to ask for permission.
Technically speaking, I did most of my shooting with my 24-70 2.8L lens. I brought out my 10-22 for some wide angle shots of the crowd and of the DJ. I never needed to go to my beloved 20-700 2.8L IS lens, as I was always close to the action. For the model runway, I was able to get all my photographs with my 24-70. However, I missed having the 16-35 2.8L lens for the backstage. It was *extremely* crowded, and with so many people and 2 other photographers and 2 other videographers, it was near impossible to move around and frame a good photograph with my 24-70. A 16-35 would have been perfect for the backstage shoot. The flash was useful all around, if you are good at bouncing light. There was fortunately enough light backstage that I could use the flash in high-sync FP mode to provide a good fill flash. However, I had to account for the low ceiling in the angle and strength at which I used the flash. Also, what was continuously annoying, were people who were too close to my left or right, as to actually block part of the light out of the flash head, resulting in a useless photo.
For the model runway shots, the photographs to capture were simple enough. There weren’t too many options for framing. The backstage shoot needed me to be more involved. Where the runway photos were laid out for me, in the backstage I was looking for good shots. Mainly i looked for some nice ‘getting ready’ shots, including the adding make up shots and doing the hair shots.
Some of the technically challenging photographs from this shoot included the photographs of the model and the band that I took from behind the stage, facing the audience, and the bright spotlights. But from this angle, with the spotlights in the frame, I was able to get some fantastic shots, including: [00501-20090226-8135] [00503-20090226-8137] [00499-20090226-8133] [00541-20090226-8175] [00550-20090226-8184] [00359-20090226-7993] [00567-20090226-8201]. Framing these shots were difficult. I needed to position and angle my body so that the model/band member actually fully covered the bright spotlight. This is the only way that the camera can capture focus. The bright light will befuddle the cameras in body AF sensor. After capture AF lock, then you need to quickly reframe the photograph so that the spotlight is just nearly showing or in between two people or in some other aesthetic place, all before the subjects in the frame move to much, making the focus wrong or the framing wrong. Basically, it meant a lot of weird and quick moving around of my body to capture the shots.
At the end of the day, I was very tired and my leg muscles quite stressed. All night I was working in small areas around 5 other photo/video-graphers, and as not hired directly by Seattle Fashion Week, I needed to make sure to stay out of their way.
