Sex and Catwalk Shows

Now that I managed to get my password and log-in back for this blog, I'm able to post again. Oh, it was such a hassle but I'm not going to bore you with it ... this time ;-).


I just spent five days or so at London Fashion Week, rushing from one fashion show to another and I'm finally able to sit back and catch some breath. It is quite challenging physically and not an easy thing to accomplish. A while ago, when I had some time to contemplate - okay, this generally happens about 15 minutes before every catwalk show starts when the photographers are ready and stuck in their positions but the audience is still ushered in - I came up with the following: "catwalk shows" and "sex" are very much alike. London "Fashion Week" is probably interchangeable with Paris, Milan and New York "Fashion Weeks" in this respect. What!! Shock, horror!! No, really. And I will tell you why.

Before it all kicks off, the photographers study the schedules and pick the shows they deem interesting and fashionable. More often than once, "normal" fashion show accreditation from the BFC will not suffice. Additional passes have to be obtained and PR executives wooed. These additonal passes add to the show's desireability and in photographer's conversations PR people are quickly transformed into "we always got on well" or the "eternal arch enemy" who will not recognise the quest you're on and deem your agency, magazine or web blog too bloody unimportant to attend. The hype adds to the build-up so badly that you're eventually prepared to kiss Mandy Lennard's feet - not that this is going to get you anywhere near your quest - and you eventually decide to blow it (I love BLOW PR, btw). Foreplay, don't you just love it!

So, the day of the fashion show approaches. You managed to obtain a ticket. You're dead excited. You're wearing your best frog. And why shouldn't you. But you're not quite there yet. Most good spaces will have been taken already. The house photographers will demand their positions, Chris Moore, Mitchell, Ian or the boy from Getty and Reuters will also be squeezing into the best slots. But still, you're somewhere up on the platform and your batteries are fully charged. Eventually, the show starts. The models track up and down the catwalk. Up and down. Over and over again. The camera shutters fire like there is no tomorrow. It builds up to the climax. And then, that's it. After five or ten minutes on the catwalk, if you're lucky, it's all over. The cameras are put away and the house lights come back on.

But it's not all over yet. The speculation begins. Not just with the photographers but also with the audience. Was it worth it?! Was it any good? How was it for you?

Some recent London Fashion Week images can be found here: http://www.vibrantpictures-agency.co.uk/

That Christian Bale Rant

I'm sure you've all heard about it. That poor Director of Photography moved on the set whilst the actor was rehearsinging the scene. Bale unleashed a tirade of f-words and kept going on and on and on. He was upset. It made me feel quite uneasy listening to it as I've just finished working on a film set as a stills photographer. When does a stills photographer get her picutres? Not during a take. So you have to hit the shutter button during rehearsals. But it does get noticed. Whilst everyone else on the set freezes in their actions - I'm sure that some will even hold their breaths - the stills photographer is still plowing away. I suppose on zillion-dollar budget features, they manage to encase their cameras in blimps so that the shutter noise does not reach anyone's ears. But on low budget ones ... Luckily, we had some great British actors on the set: Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn and Celia Imre.

As it happens, I was once evicted from a set ... well, kind of. I was visiting Luxor in Egypt and our guide, a former extra on "Death on the Nile" or "Jewel on the Nile" was showing our little troupe around the ruins of Karnak. Everyone had (silent) digicams apart from me. This resulted in my 1Ds' shutter swinging back and forth with the greatest of joy until I was challenged by him: "Young lady", he looked straight into my eyes with a piercing stare, "do you want to follow my talk or do you want to take pictures elsewhere?" I have to admit that his question did catch me a little unaware and I hesitated a few seconds before giving the correct answer - I'm a photographer after all - "take pictures elsewhere". Later all the digicam users told me that they had been clicking behind his back and were quite scared of him and would have liked to have joined me. :-)

Chinese New Year in London

The Chinese New Year's celebrations in London always used to be my favourite event of the year and right now I'm not so sure anymore if it still is. I loved the parade and I'm quite sure so did the other togs - but this year they didn't have one. Sob, blubber.

I grew up with stories about a distant cousin of mine emigrating to Hong Kong - well, he eventually became the Ferrari retailer to the wealthy Chinese, and is probably counting his money right now. Having visited Hong Kong a few years ago, I must say that I liked the town and the Chinese a lot - apart from a metallic smell of the seafood/shellfish odour lingering in the air - but that's another story. The view from Hong Kong peak at night is just unbelievable and right now I want to go back!!!

Today, London celebrated the "Year of the Ox" which comes around every twelve years. Oviously, I'm not going to tell you under with sign of the Chinese zodiac I was born because this might lead you to some unlawful - yeah, don't do it - calculations of my age. ;) But, so you can relax, mine is a really lovely sign.

Photographers don't like politicians and their stand-ins on stage adressing the public. Does anyone ever listen? Is it photogenic. I don't know. But then, thinking back, some of my past politicians' pictures have sold.

Due to being the stills photographer on a "low budget" feature film - don't worry, some blogs about this will follow - I couldn't really stay long. I ended up in a press pen outside the press pen (don't ask) to watch a "flying lion". Yup. Something like that performed by the brothers Chen. They were up on some - what looked-like tubes - and jumped from one to the other. Pretty scary. They really did well, until, shock, horror, one of the tubes fell. Ahhh. I'm pretty sure that everyone went: NOOOOOOHHH! But we needn't have worried. It was part of the act and just made watching even more enjoyable.

It still is my favourite festival - I do tell everyone taking part in the Notting Hill Carnival the same but let's keep that a secret!

What next, Jessops?!

I've just read on the Amateur Photographer website that the UK camera retailer Jessops has stopped stocking Pentax cameras and they're quoting customer needs in relation to prices. If people don't want Pentax cameras, so be it. Don't clog up your shelves with the stuff. Limit their choice to what they buy to what you want to sell them. If they don't see the cameras, they might never ask for them. Hey, wouldn't it be a good business plan to make a list of, say, your 10 best-selling products in each category and then drop all other items further down the line so you can concentrate on them. And as they're your best sellers, you can bulk-buy from the manufacturer with a great big whopping discount, lower your prices to the customers even further and before you know it, you're singing and dancing all the way to the bank. Not a bad business strategy if you're a web-based retailer specialising in best-sellers and discounts. Certainly a bad idea if you have zillions of stores dotted across the country. Now, let's make a list of your 10 best-selling retail outlets.

(NB: I think Pentax are a great photographic camera manufacturer.)

"Be Prepared!"

Unfortunately, I don't know the Latin translation for "be prepared" as I might make it my motto. It's a belts & braces approach to work and I rather be safe than sorry.

This week I had to do a studio shoot but call me psychic (or cynic), I kind of didn't quite think it was going to be an "inside" job. And I was right. Unfortunately, because I had to spend one long day in a bitterly cold winter garden taking make-up shots featuring casualty wounds. Luckily I had brought my Speedlite and my brolly kit and was able to use it in connection with my ST-E2 to trigger it. I hadn't used it this way before yet. This is what I did. I set my Speedlite to "manual" and used the F-stop my light meter gave me. Then I adjusted the shutter speed accordingly. Yes, everything in manual mode. Here are three sample pictures - no worries, it's just make-up and not real wounds. I have desaturated the pictures a little so they're not too gory.When my ST-E2 battery failed I had to put the Speedlite back on the camera. I tried to keep it in manual mode but because I kept changing the distance to the models a lot, I found it worked better in ETTL-mode (plus 1 stop) but I kept the camera on the same manual settings as before. It also worked but created some shadows behind the models.

So, next time, I better take a spare battery for the ST-E2.

Cobh 'n' Cork

Don't you know this feeling when you see a bargain? You just have to stick out your grubby little hands and make it yours forever. Cheap Ryanair fares is one of the things I cannot resist. Day trips is another. What better when both can be combined. In the past I've been to Florence, Rome, Dublin, Valencia and Venice for the day. This time I got hold of a return ticket to Cork in the Republic of Ireland for, wait for it, two pennies including taxes. The 10 Pounds credit card processing fee came as a bit of a shock. Getting to Stansted airport from North London is usually more expensive than the flight itself.

The sun isn't yet up when I'm on the airport bus into Cork. And eventually I realise that the sun rises in the east (okay, the sun doesn't rise, the Earth turns ... no need to be that picky) - I turn 180° and can now read the map perfectly well and manage to reach the rail station. So, basically, I go to Cork and the first thing I do is leave it straight away to go to Cobh. Cobh, pronounced "cove" is just a short ride away. It's a lovely little city - colourful houses, pubs, seafront, boats, harbour - that was made famous by the sinking of the Lusitania nearby and it was also the last stop of the Titanic before setting sail towards New York. St Coleman's cathedral towers over Cobh and I expect it to be closed. I'm in Ireland, stupid, it's not just open, a mass is being held. After a couple of hours I'm back in Cork.

I criss-cross the shopping area and follow the quays along the River Lee. It's busy, lots of shops are trying to lure money-laden Irishmen and women to their sales racks. I resist, not that I wouldn't want to but my backpack is already wearing me down. Enjoying a peaceful break by the River Lee, I'm abruptly awoken by an excited woman who had just spotted a seal swimming upstream. Or was it downstream? "So have I", I mutter back, "very nice." I just about manage to stretch my neck about an inch to get a glimpse but immediately slump back and hug the wooden bench I'm sitting on. I love benches. I wonder if there are any "bench aficionados" gathering in forums on the web. Surely not! Two more excited Irishmen share the seal news with me. Friendly people the Irish, but they do talk a lot. Now I only have one more wish, find a nice pub and sit down. If my feet manage to carry me that far. My shoulders are hurting like mad, only my credit card hurts more when I have to shell out €2.50 for half a pint of Guinness ...

The Joys of Post-Processing

NOT! Dust spotting can be quite therapeutic some may say but if you have to plow through 1000 selected images, you quickly begin to loathe it. Before Christmas I had done some portfolio shoots for zillions of models at a make-up college and I had only colour-balanced and selected the images so far. A task in itself. Argh! The CD with images will have to go in the post tomorrow. I shot with one studio strobe but couldn't light the background at the same time. My 1Ds is notorious for dust spots. Really bad and as my sensor has got a tiny scratch, I need to adjust every frigging image. It was bodypainting shots mainly, and some of the make-up girls are real artists.





NB: Today (14th) they showed me some enlargements they've laminated and will put on the wall. It's not exactly the ones I would've chosen because my favourite ones are big close-ups and not the full lengths ones they selected. But I'm happy, no dust spots visible on the enlargements. Big smiles all around.