Fashion Week Backstage

[Madison]

A friend gave me the opportunity to shoot backstage at the Fashion
Week, an offer I could not refuse. I gave it a shot, documentary style. Here are some of the pictures (the series is over
40 pictures). I haven't done this before, so I found
it very hard to do! And my
insecurity (an amateur), caused me to not be at ease in the crowd. But it was a
learning experience so I guess it served a purpose.


ISO 3200 - F4 - 105mm - 1/400 (Models listening to instructions at the very beginning of the runway early in the morning)
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ISO 3200 - F4 - 35mm - 1/400 (Kids in makeup for the show before the one I was doing, loved the antlers I had to take a picture)
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ISO 3200 - F4 - 58mm - 1/100 (Checking herself in the mirror before entering the runway. Things are a bit chaotic backstage now)
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ISO 3200 - F4 - 105mm - 1/80 (Checking the dress seconds before entering the runway. Actual runway show in progress)
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ISO 3200 - F4 - 35mm* - 1/100 (*image cropped considerably)
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ISO 3200 - F4 - 105mm - 1/1250 (still not sharp: I trembled because this is my favorite model: Patricia Van Der Vliet)
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ISO 3200- F4 - 50mm - 1/30
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ISO 3200 - F4 - 105mm - 1/30 (This girl is stunning. Her name is Marvy. She was so kind and positive to everyone).
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ISO 3200 - F4 - 24mm - 1/100 (Dress rehearsal: models get instructions right behind the runway)
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ISO 3200 - F4 - 105mm - 1/1600 (Early rehearsal, no designer clothes yet, hair still work in progress, and no makeup)
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[dougthebiker]

You've got a great sense of composition.I like these very much.


Was this all ambient light sources? What equipment and settings?





Doug

[Keith B]

COOL!


Nice pics. I'm jealous.


Yes, equipment, modes, settings and such? Enquiring minds want to know.

[TheRoff]

Nice composition!! And, yes please, more information, particularly on the ligh source.





Larry

[Itheone]

Soooo jealous.....





Great work BTW [Y]

[Madison]

Thanks! I wasn't too thrilled with these shots myself to be perfectly honest because I missed 'the moment' a lot. But like I said I went there to practice.


Equipment? I used it to test drive my new 5D Mark II (compared to my 400D the 5D Mark II shutter response seemed slower, or is that just me? It feels so different. I did my sister's wedding this summer and got a lot more good shots but that could be because I was alreay used to my old 400D that I used for my vacations hahaha).

I test drove the EF 16-35 F2.8 L USM II as well (I had never used something so wide before, especially not since 24-105 was all I used with the 400D which is crop body instead of full frame) but I was so nervous and it was all ambient light so I had problems finding a good composition and keeping the camera still. Using UWA needs more practice I think. It's hard! I also needed to move in too close for my own comfort (being new at this) so I switched to the EF 24-105 F4 L USM IS. I am used to this lens. I love it so much. Being F4 that meant longer shutter speeds because the ambient light that was there was weird. It looks like a lot but it's a lot of low power stuff. Or something. I don't get it to be honest. It was also a case of nerves and me not being able to hold still the camera because of it.


No flash used. All ambient light. Mixed sources. From weird halogen spots up at the ceiling that illuminate hair to catwalk lighting to makeup bulb mirrors to a little daylight through small windows and more. I wanted to not use flash to capture it s 'real' as possible and practice low light photography. You know, as an experiment.I shot everything at ISO 3200 to make sure had enough light. In postprocessing to black&white I did some vignetting and contrast but that's it (like you would in a dark room) to emphasize the subjects.

That's it really. I saw the real pros walking around and their pictures were amaaazing. I was blown away. But they all asked the models to pose and that is something I wanted to avoid because I wanted to do it docmentary style with as little interference as possible (you know what I mean? English is nit my first language so if I messed up please let me know so I can change the post). :-)

The entire series is over at my blog (smaller than here) if you want to see those: www.madebymadison.com

[T-Rav]

I think they turned out wonderful. And your English is just as goodas the pictures.

[anulogy]

Wow great job. Anyway to post b/w conversion/ sharpening? My shots from my 5D mark ii dont look anywhere near this sharp :/

[Madison]

Wow great job. Anyway to post b/w conversion/ sharpening? My shots from my 5D mark ii dont look anywhere near this sharp :/

Well sharpness at 21mp is different than it is on lower mp files I learned. So whenever I reduce filesize I do sharpening for that specific filesize. So these files were sharpened *after* they were reduced for screen.


And with RAW you always have to do shaprening. I do some pre-sharpening after import (mildy) and do the rest of it at export depending on the size and medium (screen, print etc).