You've seen one side of the catwalk, now see the other.

Robin Karnstaedt was photographing with Converse Communications who organised Foyle Fashion Week. The life of the photographer is oft lonely when waiting around and trying to get light balances right. So Robin and I traded. In order for him to test out his new flash bounce card he took some photographs of me. No problem.

Later he took one of me at my office (the hotel's stepladder).


And then I noticed what he was doing.....

No doubt they'll find their way on to Facebook, Bebo and the like.

Foyle Fashion Week - Thursday

A much better evening catwalk. A break in the middle just broke the evening up nicely and gave the audience a bit of time to run to the bar and back again. Perfect.





The catwalks were much more fluid tonight, a couple of them really shone. Highlights in terms of collections were the finalists of the Fashion Academy and Jarayd F's new season of stuff. The Fashion Academy designs were brilliant, my fave still being the paper creation that took the poor lass SIX MONTHS to make and took me 1/125th of second to photograph.



The aftershow party at the Red Rooms was good, I did feel a little old but nothing to worry about. People who want their photo taken jump in front of the camera and when they get bored you can usually get the feel that the end of the night is nigh.

Foyle Fashion Week - Wednesday

Ahoy there, perched from my high step ladder.....

When are press guys going to realise that using flash ain't gonna cut? :)

I had an enjoyable time during the first catwalk last night. But with no break it was a long night aloft the steps (kindly blagged from the hotel by Rosemary Wright, make up artist and step blagger).

With no break I ended up using both the S5 and D50 so there wasn't any downtime. Tonight I've asked for a ten minute break to give my feet time to recover.

The event was well received and I'm hoping it will become a regular thing. Converse did a good job on putting all this together.

Well done guys!

So, the preparation: camera's, clients and the rest.

Okay, here's the basic run down before any large catwalk shoot I do.

The Camera

I take two cameras, the main camera is my Fuji S5 Pro and the backup is a Nikon D50. Everything is zeroed-out and ready to go (memory cards formatted, White Balance set to cloudy (but more on that in a minute) ISO set to ISO100 for the S5 and ISO200 for the D50 and the mode is put to AP (Aperture Priority).

Make sure:

• Memory cards are formatted


• Lenses are clean


• White Balance is usable (we don't want 300 pics in lovely blue cast, do we!)


• Batteries are fully charged and bring the fully charge spares (if you have them)

Catwalks vary from place to place. Some have no platform, some do. Lighting varies immensely as well and I try to make a few phone calls and get some information a few weeks before the show happens. With Foyle Fashion Week for example we met in the location and ran through setups, where the runway was and access etc. Whatever the weather, no flash on catwalk please. Get the fastest lens you can afford. I carry a 50mm f1.8 prime lens religiously in my bag. I borrowed a 50mm 1.4 for the very first catwalk I did, the press guys thought I was mad until they saw the pics. No platform, have steps from the local DIY store.

The Client

Got a pass? All depends on the event. Some events just love photographers kicking about. I'm booked as the client's sole photographer so I get free dibs where I'm going to stand (the press will have work around me). On this one it's head on at the end of the runway and at eye level with the models who are walking down it. The best catwalk shots have protocal behind them. Personally I don't like the looking up the nostril of the model shot, I know I've done it myself a few times but I didn't have the choice or the reputation at the time (no one had seen my stuff or heard of me). Now it's a little different.

Keeping FFW as an example, I caught noise of the fashion week in June. I was on the phone the next day, already sorting out press photos for the local paper and booking myself in with the directors of the company putting it together.

I attended the launch party (I don't really do parties that well, not good with the noise anymore, rather be in reading a book with a cuppa). Did loads of shots there, did some others as well. Put a gallery of stuff up. Next thing the phone is ringing the next morning asking to meet and quote.

Sometimes it's not that easy. The quotes get passed back and forth and things have to be reshaped but as long as we get a win-win then I'm happy.

On the day

Be early. The first Belfast Fashion Week I did was all over the place. The car wasn't acting right, I got lost, the police followed me, I needed to park, I needed the toilet, I went to the front instead of the stage door and I looked like a nutter when I arrived backstage clutching to myself.

Be as early as you can. Bring water, don't assume that the client will pay for everything. I'm not pally pally with the models either, they are doing their job and I am doing mine. I didn't get into catwalk photography to look at models. During BFW I didn't speak to anyone apart from the organiser, Cathy Martin (and that was for literally 30 seconds to say hello), and a few other photogs during the break.

Most of all, enjoy yourself, it will show in the pictures.

Eglinton is now the centre of the universe (or Jason Smyth comes home)

The usually quiet village of Eglinton in Northern Ireland is currently a buzz with paralympic double gold medalist Jason Smyth returning home. I have now gained the press photographers knack of walking backwards between a marching band and a big four x four vehicle, whilst not being run over by a throng of kids, atheletes and adults.

I carried two cameras with me, my old Nikon D50 with a 55-200mm telezoom and the S5 with my 18-55mm. Now there's only so many ways you can photograph a nice bloke on the back of a truck. All cameras point skyward.

For me the better shots came at the end, then I went for the small details. The kids were desperate to touch the medal (I was wondering what it felt like myself but didn't want to try).

On camera flash modifications and their effects.

It was one of those late nights where I walked into the office to do one thing and ended up doing three other things as well.

On camera flash is pretty bad for most things but as a press shooter you usually have very little choice but to slap the thing on the camera and fire away. I then bought a Lightsphere and that helped a whole lot, the other photogs would poke fun at me but no matter my pictured looked better.

Wanting to get a real good grip on the whole light thing I purchased a copy of "Light: Science and Magic" from Amazon, a wonderful book. The last chapter was going on about bounce cards, so I thought I'd give that a try.

So I created an experiment with the help of the above (belongs to my daughter and the hairdressing head/shoulders has no name). It did provide though a good gauge on how bounce flash, bounce card and the Lightsphere would produce images.

You can see the full set of images here.

Irish Dancing with attitude

No shoot is ever the same. Recently I've taken to doing some daft stuff at the end of shoot and it's usually those shots that the publications go, "hey wait a minute, let's use that one".

Irish Dancing has some protocols when it comes to photographs, I call it the "pointy toe theory" because when anyone is in Irish Dancing attire and has their photo taken the pose is practically automatic.

The Allen School of Dancing win awards left, right and centre and they are a good bunch to photograph. Once I'd got the main stuff out of the way I heard a under breath comment of, "wish we could do one posey". I just looked at the lass and said "yeah, let's do a big posey group shot".

Easy, totally relaxed and I was loosing light rapidly (as you can tell from the light falloff from the flash).

Chic Fashion Show

This was arranged weeks ago and my brain was positive it was on a Thursday, so when I look in the diary and I see Tuesday.... plans go to pot for everyone involved. I saw this catwalk as a good run through for two Foyle Fashion Week catwalks I'm doing next week.

The Chic Chairty Fashion show is held in store, over two floors, so the five models have to plan some form of route downstairs then upstairs without bumping into each other. Best position for me was on my knees for a full 90 minutes.

The odd thing I found is it became a homely touchy feely type of do. The audience want to know more and the oddities also fly out (one audient was more bothered about the ring the model was wearing that any of the outfits).

It also gave rise to some great under the breath comments, "it looks like she's wearing marigolds!", as the model walked down with mustard leather gloves on.



So it's not strictly a catwalk, more a soiree of customers willing to give to charity and have a look at the autumn/winter collections. A great evening.

Football Photography

"Go shoot the football and the odd picture of the manager....", came the shout from the desk (well not so much a shout, more a polite request).

After the usual dealing with the sponsor shots (and cheque presentations) it was out on to the pitch. Obviously when a photographer enters the pitch the rain is to start on cue. It did and then continued for the next 25 minutes. I was drenched, the camera was wet but fine.

I got some good shots, but actually enjoyed photographing the managers hollering at their teams much more. Much much more :)