How fashion week works...as a photographer outside.
February Fashion Week, you all remember the volume of extraordinary outfits that our icons wore, I mostly remember how I wore tights under my jeans and hand warmers tucked inside my scarf..doesn’t sound like I should have anything to do with fashion right?! Well as a photographer who has been waiting for opportunities for several years - even before obtaining my degree in Photography - this is what it takes.
Step 1: Place yourself outside in below zero temperatures, in the snow, in the grey of NYC on a stormy day. Or in sweltering temps for the September shows - somewhat more pleasant than the cold.
Photo Credit: ©Natasha Harri Fuller.
Step 2: Work for myself, for free, capturing fun images and gain technical experience, and an understanding for how such events work.
Photo Credit: ©Natasha Harri Fuller.
Step 3: In this manner, arrive painfully early, carry a boatload of heavy equipment, and wait endlessly for that few seconds to shoot.
Photo Credit: ©Natasha Harri Fuller.
On edge for a blacked out SUV, bright sponsored car or a yellow cab.. so basically you become a traffic officer. Once a car starts to slow feet begin to patter, cameras in the air, a sudden rush towards the car, not really thinking about your life at this point, just getting that lens directed at the awe inspiring artwork - the outfit, hair, make-up, accessories, and most of all the person - that’s about to step out of the car. If you make it to the car being in the front row is mostly always unpleasant, I’ve taken so many camera lenses to the back of the head, elbows, backpacks, whole people.. quite the circus act. I understand why some people opt out of pulling up out front.
That moment though..., when you begin to see someone clearly through your viewfinder, you recognize them, and now they fill your frame, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, there is an excitement that comes over you, a rush to want to declare your love for their outfit! Then the pack starts to move along with the icon, NO JUST A FEW SECONDS LONGER, dread rushes through me, will I fall, will I get trampled, my camera, my baby! Please stay in one piece! I start to panic CLICK, try to get that framing once again. You’ve hopefully successfully managed to move with the pack - I imagine much like the kind of coordination needed to maneuver a two-man horse costume but way larger. Your icon has entered into fashion week, I hope I’ve not been too intruding or made the subject feel bombarded. I remind myself: I am here trying to build a portfolio, trying to gain opportunities, unlike a lot of press that are already doing what I love.
I instantly press playback, O god: out of focus, o crap: cut their head off, o my: no shoes! AH: I got one, phew, zoom, OK, relax. Then the discussions start... Was that? Who’s that? O it was so and so! From that show! If your brushed up on most of the icons that show up to fashion week like myself you’ll start freakishly fast typing on social media, posting what you can from the street. If you’ve had that much time to think you were lucky, another car! The patter starts all over again..as more people turn up to the shows the circus gets crazier.. but the buzz, the energy surrounding you without actually talking to another person is humbling, to look at another photographer equally excited and see a crowd of fans enjoying themselves, even in the freezing cold of the NYC February shows, gives me reassurance that I’m not a crazy person using hand warmers to keep my face warm!
You get about ten minutes of calm, that allows you to check your settings, lock your favorite images, post what you can to social media, and possibly do some serious jogging on the spot in winter!
...and then they leave. The mass exodus heard upon you like a swarm of bees, your eyes have to be really peeled as some of the key icons will slip out with the crowd, others backstage doors, and some wait until the storm calms. I try to choose a few key people that went in to look out for, or people I need a second chance to frame.
It’s a train wreck. Media, street style togs and folks kind of in-between like myself are darting all over the place, we are stopping traffic: honking horns, skidding cars, and security doing their best to keep us from getting mowed down. Then more than one icon exit at once, NOoooo, now you have to dart from one end of 33rd street to the other and back, sliding over car hoods or shoving people out of the way like your a member of the FBI.
One show finished, everyone has left and the media have cleared out, gone for lunch and sitting somewhere cosy.. and I, and other enthusiasts are scattered across the sidewalk outside the shows, time to reflect on how you behaved, quite depleted, hungry, and constantly checking the time.. It’s a risk, do you leave your post, do you have time to jump between show locations, remember photographers work for themselves theres no ‘save my seat’ happening!
The public schedule is good enough to plan which shows you want to try and capture, but some of the larger names are unknown or released last minute, you’ll get talking to others in the field, and find out about other shows, but all you want to do is get home to edit those photos, and get them online - this year I plan to take my laptop and work where possible, not having somewhere secure to leave it, being bashed around and likely not getting WIFI has kept it at home in the past, but it’s a huge disadvantage! You have to get your content up, you have to be one of the first, you have to have a different angle/framing to others. I have shot many events in this manner, as you can see on my website, The Royal Wedding, the London and Vancouver Olympic & Paralympic games, but uploading them just twenty-four hours behind everyone else, your photos are already old news. I have been doing this for years, I’m asking for a job now, I’m asking for someone to take a chance on me and I’ll tell you why I’d be worth it... other than being capable technically, simply, I don’t like this circus, I want to work to change the way these events are structured, I want fans, enthusiasts and media to be a collective for everyone to have an opportunity to see and enjoy these events, the media at the end of the day will always have the closest looks but it’s doesn’t need to be such a mess and neither icon or photographer should feel uncomfortable, and furthermore no photographer should feel they have the right to shove their camera where and how they want. I call for structure. I want people that want to take those photos to be there! Why can’t 33rd street be closed? Why not create a horseshoe barrier for photographers and fans? The shows are basically closed off to the public. We can’t buy what we can’t see. Tommy Hilfiger introduced a social media crowd and streamed his shows live online this year, should these events be more open? Read my next post for more on this...and how I met Coco Rocha.
Photo Credit: ©Natasha Harri Fuller.
See more images from past fashion weeks on my website: http://www.natashafuller.co.uk
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