Fashion show

Nordic

As a part of a street festival here in Vienna, the 'Dancing Shiva' - shop held a little fahsion show. This shop is mainly known for its colorful fashion line. The fabrics and clothes are all made in Goa / India, without any machinery and chemical dyes.
Anyway, it was a funny event! Katharina was one of the models, and I was 'the official photographer'.

I hope you enjoyed these photos as much as I did taking them. And I wish you a colorful day!

dogwood

Couple comments-- nice job on capturing the energy and colors.

Your WB looks a little off? Mix of tungsten and flash? I usually gel my strobes with a tungsten gel and set the WB to tungsten for fashion shows that have any tungsten light.

Also, I find a wide open aperture (around f 3.2) on a long lens (70-200) helps blur the background, but of course you have to nail the focus dead-on (not too much of a problem with a 1dmkiin though ). Another trick is to meter for the ambient light, then dial it back a stop and use your strobe to get the proper exposure on the model/clothes while still keeping the background a lil' darker.

Personally, I like seeing the crowd in some shots too-- so I shoot two bodies, one with a wide and one with a 70-200. Also, if you were the 'official' photographer, that's your chance to get pre-show shots one on one with models using studio strobes before the doors open to the public! Yeah, it's a LOT more work, but here's a shot I nailed before a fashion show-- and it's better than anything I shot on the runway (and guess what photos the designers/models would rather purchase?)

Nordic

Hi Pete!

Thanks a lot for your comments and helpful suggestions! I apreciate them a lot!

You mentioned white balance. Yes, you are right! I didn't use a flash, and the lightning in there was catastrophic. Light levels were generally very low, and it was a nice mix of tungsten light - in all thinkable colors, as they only seem to use fancy lamps with all kind of colorful glass and natural light through the windows - again, through colorful curtains. I shot RAW, and left the whitebalance on auto, which gave me completly yellow skin. As yellow as this -> .

I then adjustes WB manually so that the clothes look like I remember them and the skin looks more natural too.

As for long lenses: that would not have worked here, as the place was so small and crowded. I agree, a more shallow DOF would be nice.

You have to keep in mind that this was all just for good fun. None of the models had a professional background, the makeup artist was the daughter of the hair stylist, who is a friend of the shop keepers and so on...
So, it can not be compared with the level that you describe.

Anyway, we had a great time, a lot of fun, and got to know some very nice people there.

Regards,
Andreas

dogwood

Nordic wrote:

You have to keep in mind that this was all just for good fun.

Andreas:

Yeah, I figured your show was all in fun... posted my comments just in case it was so much fun you were planning to shoot more. You've no idea what I'd do to shoot a proper European fashion show... the stuff I shoot is fairly small-time. Though I have to say that photo of the two models I posted was from this summer-- the show theme was "little white dress" and all the models had variations on white dresses designed by local designers. That was pretty cool-- especially the designer who had his dress on a sickly little girl who was brought out in a box!

Anyway, I don't see much fashion show work here so I'm glad to see your photos.

Here's a shot of the little girl in the box-- I swear I didn't make that part up!