Thorsten Overgaard

One thing is the nice girls in bikinis. But someone delivered jewelry and would like a picture. Some did the stage light or rented out the sound mixer. If it’s in a picture, usually they call and ask.

Speaking of which – what to photograph?

Catwalks, of course! Or may that is not that obvious though. Lots of stuff is going on such as famous people attending catwalks. There’s always a small crowd of photographers outside that shoot the famous people for the weeklies. The never come in and shoot the fashion stuff. Just the arrivals.

Frankly I don’t own a television so I kind of too often miss out who’s who (Then again, it very often happens that photographers all shoot a person and then when the person has left, turns to each other and ask “who was that.” Some people just look important and when everybody shoots…)

I’m an odd guy. I often shoot people I like, and those I don’t like, I skip. For example Lena Nystrøm, former singer of AQUA. Man, she is perhaps the nicest looking girl I saw that week. She has class like a princess, the way she carries herself, she’s looking honest and clean like a Norwegian river. And she’s down to earth; which is a star quality here around.

Anyway, I would love to do a lot of backstage and behind the scenes stuff but simply did not have time for it. The required pictures were up to ten shots from certain shows and that’s it. And even that almost required an assistant to pull off.

Some shows was not on my list but I attended anyway because that gave me a possibility to se things a bit from an external point of view. One such was the Design School Denmark where I stood in the back on a ladder and couldn’t always get the models feet. But then gave some interesting stuff anyway. Like this one:

I shoot manual and often plus and minus the f-stop depending on if it is light or dark dress coming in on the catwalk. If dark, you have to get enough light in to se the details in a black shirt. If it’s light dress, you have to get the light down so you don’t burn out the details in that either.

If it is possible, get there very early to get THE spot in front of the catwalk. Television guys come early. But get there early and place a marker on your spot. Also, that will usually allow you to see the light being tested, thus you can check white balance (color temperature) and how much light is there.

That said, if you come last minute, standing other places than in THE spot can be interesting. I do that a lot and the jury is still out to determine if I want to do a bunch of straight shots from THE spot or more interesting pictures from other angels.

THE spot means you have the runway behind the model, often the logo in the back, usually no audience in the picture, and the model look straight into the lens.

As many fashion magazines crop fashion shots very tight and have 30 or 40 on one page, that kind of shots are perfect for that.

Because, who are we shooting for?

Where it’s a general rule in shooting fashion (and celebrities also) to have a full picture of the person from toe to top (because again; someone delivered the shoes, the makeup, the hair, the hat, the dress, etc), my editor also told me to focus and crop close sometimes:

Because what the fashion geeks want to look at in a fashion picture is not the tits or the face of the model. No, they are looking at the details. How is the thing designed? How is it cut? Which buttons? What material?

They don’t care for atmosphere shots from catwalks. Been there, done that.

So sometimes you cut off the shoes and the legs – and arms too if you have to – to show the shirt or jacket.

The crop factor. It generates a lot more interest in the picture. Thus more picture sales.

I’m still playing around with this. On the train back home I had three hours to edit and came up with this new invention, I’m rather proud of. Because in selecting which shot to use, I notice how differently the dress looks for each step.

Funny enough, a crowd from DAY was on the same train so we had a chat and 10 girls around me looking at pictures. They are so curious to se what was on the other shows too.

So ther you have a great deal of your audience. In the old days some photographers made real good money photographing catwalks in Paris and then a day later delivering a stack of prints to the fashion houses around Europe.

That’s how fashion becomes fashion apparently out of the blue. Copying.

As for gear I used my Leica D2 because of the AF, 28-90 mm zoom and the strong f/2.0 lens. Doesn’t weight a thing either, which is important when you shoot for 10 hours.

I’m giving Leica R9 dSLR with digital back and the lovely 180mm f/2.0 a thought. But the problem is really not the straight catwalks where the 60 or so models come in, stand still and go back over a period of 20 minutes. Those are quite easy to adjust to and predict.

You can find a rhythm where you can both get plenty of shots and relax between shots to actually enjoy the design (if you shoot from they come in till they gou out you won’t know a thing about what happened at the show; you got to decide one or two spots at the catwalk; that when they get to that point, you fire a series 3, 4 5 shots. Then relax and wait for the next model).

No, the tricky ones are those creative catwalks in lofty places where the models go around in a circle, where the light changes from one side of the place to another. Stuff like that. It looks great as a show, but photogenic, it’s a mess. Then you first have to decide where to shoot (where the models should be at when you shoot), and then get a rhythm in for that.

If there’s to little light, they have to stand still a place where you can shoot them. If there’s plenty of light, you can shoot them while they walk.

Worst thing is those places where the color temperature shifts from one place of the catwalk to another. Stay alert for those (because most catwalk light is set for photographing right in front of the photographers pool at then end of the catwalk).

First think I check in a new place is the lamps in the ceiling. They tell me where the best light is directed towards: That is where I want to be aiming at.

I happened to know in advance which meant I took another place to stand than the rest of the photographers. So I was ready when she came in from the left, out of nothing. Also, anyone who paid attention would have noticed some guys walking around checking stuff, wearing a distinguished small pin which only the royal security wear. You see them – you know something royal is coming your way soon.

She got good taste, our princess. She choused the hottest show, but not the biggest brand. And her pictures are as popular as those of Paris Hilton. Different lady, but same media buzz.