Fashionable

My friend Craig at MockProper and I shot a fashion show Saturday night, a benefit for domestic violence. It was pretty hectic. We got there early, scoped the place out, took a few practice shots. The guy in charge of the event told us the plan. "Scene one, they come down the stairs, pose here, pose there, walk off over there...scene two, they come in from the other side, pose there, then there, then again over there, walk off over there. Scene three, they come one at a time, meet in the middle..." Etc. It went on like that, seven scenes. I think. We took off for a while.

Then a phone call came in: we had to head back and brief the other photographers, since we were the only ones who had heard the whole plan. Hmmm. Other photographers? Brief them? Um, OK, be right there.

We get back, and it's in full swing. A couple hundred guests seated. People milling around, fiddling with lights, arranging merchandise. There are now another ten photographers, we tell them we have no idea what's going on. Which is true, I think hearing the description of the event actually made us more confused than if we had simply guessed what was going to happen.

Now we both were loaded for bear, with two bodies apiece, one fast prime, one image-stabilized zoom, speedlights, and 10GB of memory. Ready for a real gunfight.

But in the end, we each used our main body with the fast lens attached, that's it. I shot every frame at f/1.8. At first, I was out of position. The other photographers were all over the place, in the way. Eventually, though, I worked my way into a good spot and planted myself there. Got some good stuff, but I think I snapped 350 shots and kept 36. It was a real struggle.

But it was fun, I'm glad Craig asked me to help. Certainly I learned a lot and got some good experience. I'll post a link to our full gallery when I can.