Stilettos in Springtime

Last night I shot my first fashion show as a regular press-pass holder. This was a REALLY unusual experience! I've shot a lot of models and even a few fashion collections in the studio and on location, but this is the first time I was packed in with a mob of other photographers and videographers all jockeying for position (about 30 of us packed into a space about 15' wide x 8' deep) This kind of shooting is NOT for the timid and indecisive :lol: I really wanted to get some shots of "the pit" but there was no way I was giving up my 2nd row spot to take shots of the guys trying to steal it. Early on I decided the speed light wasn't giving me anything close to what I wanted, so I made the decision to shoot ambient light with the 50mm 1.4 at ISO 250 nearly wide open

There's a flash slideshow here: http://photosfromparadise.com/Runway/ (just hit the play button)

I was expecting stiletto's...

Yeah, bit of clarification - "Stilettos in Springtime" was the name of the show. Still going through the shots and I'm sure there are some Stiletto shots in there, so when I find 'em I'll post 'em...

I can't even imagine what it would be like.
Were most of your competitors using speed light?

That has to be the ugliest dress(?) I've ever seen but a couple of others in the slide show are close. Some are nice looking too.

Some real nice shots there, Jet. Good move to lose the speedlite as there are light hitting the models on the runway and seem to be quite well lit.
i dislike these shooting situations where photographers are dogging eachother for location and shots, but you did well.
Good stuff, and experience.

The extra weird dresses are from a designer named Carmen Ballering and all were made from balloons - best guess is that they were there for the "shock factor". Can't imagine anyone would ever wear any of these in public. The end of the runway was lit with 5 tungsten spots with daylight gels and I did a quick white balance off the runway floor between models when I switched up. I wouldn't want to shoot these things all the time, but once in a while it's a big adrenalin rush with the collective energy of the crowd, the music and whatnot. One guy who had apparently gotten there 4 or 5 hours early had a pair of Adorama Flashpoint monolights with umbrellas on stands up against the back wall, but I had the chance to chimp on a couple of his shots and it didn't look like he was getting anything better. Almost everyone else was using 580EXs or SB800s with Gary Fong adapters that they had taken the lids off of (no idea why), and one guy straddling a folding beach chair in the back had a Chinese knock-off of a quantum flash mounted on a Sony A900.