Shooting Fashion Shows

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A Little Information
About The Big Show

You want to know my truth about shooting fashion shows? I don’t shoot them! Seriously. But I have shot them in the past, especially when I was first starting out in my career. The thing is, if you’re a fashion photographer, it’s going to come up. You’re going to get offered the gig at some point. Or a designer friend is going to need a favor and you won’t want to turn them down. Or maybe you really want to head in that direction with your career. For me, I’ve gotten to the place now where I will kindly refuse the gig because I just don’t enjoy shooting them.

I find them tedious and I hate standing around with a bunch of other photographers trying to get the “best shot” which ends up looking pretty much like the shots of the photographers standing to the left and right of me. I can’t help but feel that “paparazzi” thing either. The lighting is out of my control (and you know by now how much of a “light freak” I am.) The music is so loud sometimes, I can’t think. There’s no elbow room for error and it doesn’t pay that well. What’s the glory in all of it then? I don’t know. I would rather be sitting in the front row with a good view of the latest designs that will be strutting down the runway. I LOVE fashion design. Remember, I was originally going to become a fashion designer before I fell in love with photography. So for me, watching the show is way more fun than shooting it. BUT……..That’s just me! If you are planning on shooting a fashion show in the near future, here’s a few tips and links to some very useful posts and sites about the subject.

1. Cover your ass! Bring an extra camera body for two reasons: A. So you can mount two different lens to get two different shots of the same outfit. B. Murphy’s Law: if your primary camera for whatever reason on Earth decides not to work at the exact minute the show starts, you can switch to your back up with very minimal stressing out.

2. Depending on where you’re going to be standing, you’ll want to use a zoom lens with a range from between 24mm to 105mm. This is going to be a rare moment when I am actually going to advise using zoom lenses. They’re just more accommodating for this kind of shoot. Usually they place photographers at the end of the runway. You’ll want to get a full length shot of the model, a 3/4 shot, possibly a turning shot or back shot and hopefully a nice face shot, especially if the model’s wearing some great jewelry pieces or accessories.

3. Bring a mono-pod. Save your arm. You can also use it as a weapon if one of those other aforementioned photographers gets out of hand. Seriously, I’ve seen it happen. I am only joking, but I’ve seen photographers go at it with their mono-pods. Uh….in my opinion, a fashion show is not really that important to get into a blood bath over.

4. Make sure you have one of those on-camera flashes. With back up batteries. You can never count on their lighting set up.

5. Bring plenty of memory cards. They fill up fast!

6. Why not! Go ahead and shoot in auto-focus. I would.

I found this post on DPS had some really useful tips on shooting fashion shows: How to Shoot A Fashion Show. Fashion shows DO have a lot of energy. The music is loud and usually upbeat, the models are fun to watch, the clothes are usually more theatrical and dramatic. Here’s a link to the Spring 2009 Chanel Show. They did things a little different at this show but you can jump on to style.com’s site and check out any number of other designer shows. Personally, I just happen to enjoy watching the shows more than shooting them. But again, that’s just me. To each his own and that’s what makes the world go around! If you have had some experience in shooting runways shows, leave a comment for the other readers. Your input is really welcomed!

54 COMMENTS

Sander van Leeuwen

February 26, 2009

Hi folks,

Actually it’s kind of stupid that a lot of camera people are shooting the same show. Here is an image of the craziness during a show I did lately. (the Amsterdam International Fashion Week 2009)

http://i40.tinypic.com/m9xgs5.jpg (try to find me… )

It was my first big show. I actually liked some of the parts (the parties and being with a lot of famous people/designers), but I hated the actual shooting, since it was kind of stressful.

My experience:

Professional shows have good light. Especially with the good high iso performance nowadays this is not an issue.

70-200 is a good range. The only thing is most of the time you can’t shoot full body on the turn. But with 200mm you can shoot nice full body shots during the whole runway and you can make some nice close ups of accessories.

DON’T USE FLASH! With a lot of photographers the chance is big you’re ruining someone else s picture with your flash, or someone else is ruining yours. Good organizations even officially forbid to use flash. (if not other photographers will look at you they are going to kill you )
A monopod is a must have. It happens that there is very little space and you can stand steady between all other photographers.
Take a bottle of water with you since waiting can be really make you tired and thirsty.
If it’s a multiple show even, try to make friends with some of the photographers so you can help each other when this is needed (save good spots for example) and you can have a nice chat while waiting… Did I mentioned waiting already?

I hope this helps some photographers a little!

Kind Regards, Sander http://www.savale.nl

buckles

February 26, 2009

I can’t imagine anything less exciting than shooting a fashion show.

buckles

February 26, 2009

…because for me, photography is about creating, not just capturing. I’d have to set remote flashes up everywhere to make it worthwhile

Nicola

February 26, 2009

Great post, I’m about to shoot my first one (because my partner is tired of them.)

Ear plugs! You mentioned that it’s really loud. I know it’s uncool but I always wear earplugs to shows. Fluorescent-coloured hunting earplugs. So hot.

Dave Cyr

February 26, 2009

I found out about all of these things during my first (and only, so far) runway shoot. Luckily, I HAD brought a zoom lens and extra body and all that. No monopod though, and my arm knew it by the end of the night. And my card definitely did fill up fast. I think I took 700 shots or something. Spray and pray style of shooting.

While it was exciting to do my first runway shoot, I’m not sure I actually enjoyed it that much. Too hot and too many other photographers around. I felt exactly like what you said- paparazzi. Great learning experience though.

Kristy Bradford

February 26, 2009

Another great post Melissa! I have only shot one show and am not rushing back! The lighting was attrocious. Definitely not my thing. I’d much rather be there in the front row with you oohing and aahing over the collections

Fiona McGuire

February 26, 2009

Brilliant post as always Melissa. Thanks so much. I’ve shot a couple of charity show and wedding shows. Not a big fan. One particular wedding show had terrible lighting and a mirror at the back of the catwalk. And the organisers put seating at the end of the runway as well as at the sides so full lengh shots were a disaster. As with every shoot I do it was a learning experience.

Herbs

February 26, 2009

Great post. I’m an aspiring fashion photographer and i was looking for a legit blog i could read and follow. Luckily, i found yours.

Your posts just truly inspire me to reach for my dream
Why not create a post and tell us what you’ve been through to where you are now? I would definitely love to read it.

Much <3

Peter

February 26, 2009

Thanks for the post, that’s great stuff as usual. I haven’t shot a fashion show yet, but I have shot several other types of events so far. I absolutely hate it, too, but I think it is very good training for problem solving when you have to move fast on a regular photo shoot. Here are a few things I have learned the hard way:

Don’t use the biggest memory card you have. If it dies or gets stolen, all your photos will be lost, and that’s a great way to destroy all the reputation you have built. Instead, use smaller ones. If one is full, continue shooting with your other camera body until you have time to change cards, don’t trade important moments for a card change. Keep the full ones and the empty ones in separate pockets so you don’t lose time by re-inserting a full one by accident. Also use the two-pocket system for your flash batteries.

Don’t waste time deleting failures. You are very likely to miss your second chance to get it right. Also, only check your images occasionally to make sure nothing is wrong (like a leftover exposure compensation or something like that). But don’t look at every single image you take right away.
However, do take multiple shots of the same subject. The auto focus system sometimes focuses on the background, people have their eyes closed etc. So you want to have backup in such a situation. Plus you get to choose the best one of the set when you’re doing your editing. I usually take two or three shots per subject, depending on how much time there is, but you definitely need more for groups.

Always shoot RAW (even if you usually don’t), especially if you are using bounce flash a lot. Lighting often changes very quickly and people sometimes move in unexpected ways, so it is hard to get the exposure perfect every time. By shooting RAW, you can compensate for problems to a certain degree. Plus, you get between 12 and 16 bits of color depth instead of 8 with JPEG. Don’t rely on RAW’s ability to save you, though, you still need to expose as well as you can.

Get ear plugs. Not only can music be annoying, it can also be very loud. This is probably more relevant to concerts, but ear plugs also allow you to position yourself right in front of the speakers, where usually nobody is standing (or not for long), not even photographers, even if it gives you a perfect view on what’s happening.

Use a fast lens. Both Nikon and Canon make very sharp very fast zoom lenses. That way you can use more of the available light and thus get better recycle times on your flash. But even then, if you know an important shot is coming up, make sure you don’t press the shutter release a few seconds before because your flash may not be ready again in time. Fast lenses also enable you to use shallow depth of field if you have to deal with a very busy background and but don’t have a chance to move. Also, the fast zooms are usually the more professional ones and therefore tend to give you sharper images, and they maintain their minimum aperture throughout the whole zoom range. And you can take non-shaky pictures at greater focal lengths if flash is not permitted or your flash does not reach far enough. Even if you don’t use the aperture wide open, fast lenses are stopped down more at identical apertures, thus you are more likely to photograph on the lense’s sweet spot if you use an f2.8 lens at f4.5 than an f4.5 lens at f4.5. The Nikon VR system is great for low light, too. If you don’t own a good lens, you can always rent one, it’s worth it.

Also, be sure to get all the info you can in advance. If you know how the lighting is going to change, what the durations of individual segments are etc., you can plan in advance and for instance use a fresh card if you know you won’t have time to swap in the next 20 minutes. If you know that very shiny dresses are coming up, you can switch to spot metering and so on. Knowledge is power.

All those things can not only help in getting the pictures you want, they also help differentiate your images from those of the seven other guys right next to you with the exact same equipment as you have.

Sorry for the lengthy comment, but I hope this is helpful for those of my fellow readers who are forced to do events.

Thanks again for this awesome blog, it is really an invaluable resource for the “secret” stuff that can’t be found anywhere else on the internet. Keep up the great work!

Josephine white

February 26, 2009

Well first thing I always wanted to be is to be a fashion designer just like you. Anyway, you’re actually right. How do photographers make enough money of this? I mean almost all of them have the same kind of shots. Maybe 2 out of 5 photographers would have at least one different shot from the others but it doesn’t make that much of a difference does it?

Courtney Rodwell

February 26, 2009

I just shot my first fashion show, thank god it was a school event. But I will definitly take your advice on the monopod, because I was using an off camera flash with a connection wire so i could raise the flash higher so I got less shadows in the tent, by the end my arm hurt so bad it was horrible. Is there a certain brand monopod you suggest?

Alex

February 26, 2009

Beautiful post. Peter, excellent reply. I’m a nikon shooter myself and I’ve gotten excellent results from my Nikkor zooms, brilliant glass, and dead on sharp.

miss.ernie

February 26, 2009

Perfect timing! I’ve got to shoot my first one in March and you pretty much answered my questions. Along with Peter adding additional comments.

Thank you for all your insight and wonderful blog.

Vincent

February 26, 2009

Damn and I happily posted one on my blog about a month ago. I must say that I did had a lot of fun. Still got sore elbows tho . Not sure if I could make my living out of it, but every once and a while it is fun to do in my opinion. Yes the 80-200 got a bit heavy and next time i´ll def bring a monopod. I shot everything around 2.8 and had the D700 decide on the iso automatically (very clean images on high iso). Anyway hope you´re fine and we talk soon

X Vincent

http://www.holandaluz.com
holandaluz.blogspot.com

Maria~

February 26, 2009

What can say …Another Great Post….Thank You……

Fokke

February 26, 2009

Question about the last tip about auto-focus: does that mean that you normally use manual focus? I kind of get lost using manual, I think the new camera’s and lenses geared toward AF anyway. With the removal of visual focusing aids and faster, more intelligent AF-systems nowadays. What is your take on this?

Jeff

February 26, 2009

Great post,

I actually the DFS post you were referencing and also posted a comment. Quite similar to yours indeed. I am glad of that.

JonL

February 26, 2009

Well it was some 20 years ago when I shot my last one but I had conditions such as I was allowed to setup portable flashes up and out of the way, I had the best position reserved and yep the music was loud and pumping but so was I. I also had my two assistants with me one on each side and their job was load and unload and mark the film. All in all it was great if you can get those condition and this was at the Cal-Mart Fashion show. Now mind you I had 4 designers I was hired to shoot for and they had to do some serious negotiation and I had to agree to certain conditions also (such as give up a few frames free). Out here in Aussieland the shows are so boring that they aren’t even fun to look at.

Eddie

February 27, 2009

This was great info and very timely for me as this situation may come up soon!

Naseam

February 28, 2009

What made you want to be a fashion photographer instead of a fashion designer? right now Im going down the route of becoming a fashion designer but originally wanted to become a photographer…I’d like to hear your opinion…

master clipping

March 1, 2009

Very nice

Christina C.

March 1, 2009

Thank you for the post. I’m shooting my first fashion show in May and this was very helpful.

Alan Nielsen

March 2, 2009

I really enjoy your posts. You have a great flow to them, and the bullet points at the end make it really easy to go back and look at later!

tks.

Carlo Schüller - Photographer

March 3, 2009

I used to shoot fasion shows a long time ago. It was when my wife started with modelling. I experienced different lightnings. In general they ranged from absolutly terrible to quite good. A lens with a f2.0 is quite and a camera that produces still a good result in high iso are helpful. I agree that a monopod is a help. Because the walks are allways very dynamic you can’t shoot with 1/30 even if your monopod and your lens stabilizer would allow it – the model will have a motion blurr. 1/60 or 1/125 of a sec are appropriate if you want a sharp photo.

Sander van Leeuwen

March 4, 2009

1/60??? Only on the turn maybe… Otherwise you can’t make a sharp picture. 1/125 is the absolute minimum while the models walk.
F/2.0 is very nice for detail shots, but for fashion most of the time you don’t only want the buttons on a shirt to be sharp.
Better get a camera with a nice iso performance if there is a low light situation.

Jase Bell

March 6, 2009

I’ve been off the radar for a bit and missed this one.

1. Stuff as many memory cards as your pockets will allow.
2. Monopod, essential. Forgot mine once, never again.
3. Be single minded, you are after eye contact with the models, so do whatever you can to get it.
4. Get in with the music, the runway has a rhythm, you need a rhythm too. It makes a big difference in the pictures and you can usually time when to get the full, 3/4 and turn. Once you get the flow of the beat you can count when the model will do things.
5. Don’t forget to pee before the catwalk starts, once it starts that’s it you are rooted for 45 minutes

Blessings
Jase

P

March 8, 2009

I can’t believe nobody said “stepladder.” I have only shot NY Fashion Week, but it’s an arms race of stepladders in the pit. Guys in the back row are standing on ladders on top of pelican cases on top of the riser–seriously sketchy. Most of the photogs shoot small jpgs because they are on deadline and they have to upload to their publications immediately after the show–no time for RAW conversion or large files. There are lots of speedlights. The most interesting part is all the crazy handmade light modifiers for speedlights that people use backstage. Everyone has a trademark. I met a guy from the NY Times Magazine who had a bounce made out of rubberbands, 4 chopsticks and a shirt cardboard, and he was getting great results.

James Dawson

March 8, 2009

Another interesting post Melissa. I’ve shot a few of the L’Oreal Fashion Shows in Toronto. It is a rather boring gig, but I have to confess I do get caught up in the energy of these events.

There is a lot of good advice offered in the posts. I am happy to say that I can hold my hand up and say… yep I do that too.

I do use a portable harddrive device that I use to download cards during the breaks in the shows. It helps by providing a redundant data source.

I do shot both small JPG and large RAW. It eats up cards but then cards are cheap and I’ve gotten to the point were I can swap out cards in a couple of seconds and rarely miss a shot.

Faical Hajji

March 8, 2009

Very interesting post.. Many helpful information !! i did a Fashion shows a couple times since i’ve started, the first time was for a designer in a club with a catwalk and i was the main photographer so i had all the room and that was just great show and night !! the second time i had hundreds of photogs next to me and i have to say that at first i’ve got mad and didn’t know what to do.. start panicking.. but fast i realized that all i have to do is just being like them and push them too and make sure i get my shot.. everything went just well !!

Todd Nichols

March 10, 2009

Great post! I just found your site this week and have enjoyed the information you provide! Keep up the spirt!

Todd

Jennie

March 11, 2009

Gorgeous

Jordan Taylor

March 11, 2009

That dress in that first picture is amazing. This is a great resource for anyone looking to getting in shooting a fashion show. Great read.

Simon

March 15, 2009

As a full time fashion photographer, I got my “foot” into the industry by shooting the fashion weeks and eventually moved up to house photographer for all the shows / week itself. I still do this 4 or 5 times a year as not a single shoot comes down to the excitement I still feel for this many years later.

Although a lot of what is in the post I can relate to, there’s a lot I disagree with. For example in professional fashion shows the lighting – we spend hours in meetings, looking at and attending other fashion weeks, planning and working on the lighting. We then spend even more hours with the various producers discussing what they will do for each and every fashion show and designer they produce. I guide them and also take into account what the rig can do. Then before the week begins we spend the whole day before the first show working with the technical team fine tuning the lights. This sometimes means moving over 180 lights something as small as 15deg. We work to shape faces, light garments and over a 26m long runway have less than half a stop of variation. My team then puts briefing notices infront of the photographers boxes before every show specifying exposure guidelines, white-balance and any events in lighting / action to take note of.

24-105 is hopelessly too shoot. 70-200 is a standard lens for a good reason. It works. A little short at the long end on full frame (clients are demanding the resolution and magazines want images they can crop details from). Sadly there’s no other 2.8 lens. We tried one of the earlier fashion weeks with a 5Dmk2 and it just didn’t work from a AF accuracy and speed point of view. 1Ds3 it will be. No flashes should be required in these events as there’s more than enough lighting – often ISO 400, f5.6 and 1/320.

Second body – best advice ever! I’ve had a shutter fail in one of my biggest clients shows. Apart from the fact the pics were about to be used for a VOGUE exclusive on the designer, we also get all their advertising and lookbook business. I just reached down, picked up another camera (already mounted with lens) and continued shooting. Missed only about 3 pics, but thats cool, as each garment normally has about 15 photos, and this one had 10.

RAW. No chance. Too much processing (yeah, we tried an 8-core Mac Pro, still too much to process as we have everything on 4 different servers within 30min of show completion). fine tune your JPEG settings with a Picture Style on Canon (discuss with designer) and shoot it right first time!! Deliver. Big memory cards – I usually top out on 8Gb cards and walk out of a normal show with about 300 – 450 pics taking about 3.5Gb. Only use Sandisk Extreme 3 and 4 cards. Remember, on that JPEG thing I’m talking about – your White Balance is critical, skin tones are important – but the colours of the garments must be EXACT!! It’s ALL about the clothes.

Thats about all I can see based on the post above. It’s awesome, I love location fashion work, but nothing makes my blood pump like shooting a fashion week (despite having my team shoot most of it these days).

mac2400

March 16, 2009

I think shooting fashion show is very difficult. Its very quickly, hard to composition. Many shots are blur because too low shutter speed. In low light situation, its always hard to shoot.

ouedsv

March 19, 2009

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Taylor

March 23, 2009

Commenting usually isnt my thing, but ive spent an hour on the site, so thanks for the info

Ralph

March 24, 2009

Ha, funny, I found myself as well on the picture from the first comment from Sander
Hi Sander !!

Bill Galley

April 24, 2009

I know Tony Granims was at that New York fashion show. He’s one of the few self-styled fashion photographer that I know. He imitates no one. Tony has been shooting these shows for all the big New York agencies over the last few months. I recently had the chance to take a look at some of his images from the 2008 New York show. The images were fantastic, and Tony kept true to his self-fashioned style. Maybe we can see more of his work in the near future. I hope so!

sherief

May 26, 2009

the models always should be pretty face have a skills..great body
but some times they may need more….!!!!!
why they need photo retouching..?

i guess its the skin .skin smoothing and skin color
u dont have any idea about how the photo retouching can make in a model photo with some effects on the picture like lighten and darken some places and areas in the model body can make her look so hot..
for real can make her..oh
and also the smoothing which make her skin look like ..ok by the way
iam tellin u something some times u may see a models photo and say oh my god
she looks like angels she cant be a human..but belive me my friend
its just the photo retouching .. ( i agree with u that she must be pretty in basics but bellive me she is not that pretty u see

thanks

Peter

June 26, 2009

Shooting fashion shows for last few years. NY, Miami, Montreal, Toronto… name it.
If I can give you advice – never use flash or at least ask in-house photographer(s) if flash is allowed or you start having problems after few blasts.
Monopod is a must, lens – 70-200mm or 300mm (NY) and learn how to work with color temperature (Kelvin)

All the best.

Peter

Manish Chauhan

June 30, 2009

Really inspiring post………….

dave

November 28, 2009

I’m just heading out to shoot my first show tonight in Chicago (VERY last minute notice!). Never been to a fashion show, & typically can’t stand even glimpsing them (personal issue, I’ve nothing against the fashion industry), but I’m looking forward to the experience, & this article helped a bunch. Thanks muchly!

Paulene Gushi

March 17, 2010

not a bad way of putting it haha

Leland Flemmon

March 19, 2010

I come to an agreement with exactly what each person has reported, the most important factor is to look at it from a numerous perspective (as I complete nearly all of the occasion). Other than that, you obtained a fairly perfect blog here, maintain up the beneficial work.work

Eric Graf

April 14, 2010

Good tips. Stumbled across your blog today, nice site!

vas

April 15, 2010

very good info… keep up the good work!

Mariela

May 6, 2010

Very interesting, it must be tons of fun to shoot fashion shows! <3

Rebecca

July 4, 2010

I’ve got to shoot my first show on the 19th of August, Leeds – End of Summer Fashion Show, I’m really looking forward to it. Your post is really going to help me out, I was not thinking about taking an monopod with me, but now I will for sure

Thanx Melissa for the amazing information you always put in your blog, I really love it and learned so much from it. I’m just starting out and moved all on my own from Portugal to London to try and become better, sometimes I feel ike giving up, but then I read your posts and I’m ready to fight again, because I do not have any back up plans, this is it, and this is where I have to succeed in.

xx
Rebecca Heijkoop

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54 COMMENTS

buckles

buckles

Peter

Maria~

Fokke

Naseam

P

Simon

Manish Chauhan

vas

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A Little Information
About The Big Show