14.01.10
Is it easy to be a pro?
In our August Issue, professional catwalk photographer Gareth Cattermole gave us the lowdown on working in the catwalk pit. He told us what was needed, how it worked and the secrets to getting great images. We decided to test out Gareth’s advice and sent journalist Peter Silverton into London Fashion Week– challenging him to come up with the goods.
“Is that your spot?” asked the photographer squashed into my right upper arm. It was just past tea-time on the fourth day of this autumn’s London Fashion Week. We were in the photographers’ pit for the main catwalk venue, a temporary building in the courtyard of Somerset House.
“Is it?” he repeated. “Well, is it? Does it have your name on it?” Silence. His questions were aimed not at me but at a photographer who’d slyly taken up residence at my feet, almost between my legs. Uncertain of the protocol, I’d let him. “It’s a very simple question,” said the interrogator at the end of the catwalk. “Is your name on it?” A grunt of some kind, a noise that was meant to imply a lack of English, but made the speaker sound like he didn’t even believe his own lie. We were waiting for the Anglo-Brazilian designers Basso & Brooke’s fanciful printed clothing – favoured by Michelle Obama. Showtime was still 15 minutes away. The front rows were practically empty but the pit was already full to capacity and beyond. I was perched on a metal carry case. Its handle was buggering me. I had half a photographer under my left thigh, another in the small of my back and a foreign camera crew balanced on either shoulder. So the questioner had my unquestioned support in his drive to scare off the interloper – even if I did know his place would be taken immediately by the anxious-looking man hovering behind him, a brace of heavy-bodied cameras slung across his belly. At least he was on the slight side. “Look,” he continued, fairly politely – well, not menacingly, anyway. “If your name is not there, you’ve not done the mark-up. And it’s not there. So it’s not your spot.”
The unwanted man looked down at the floor studiedly, as if he’d never seen it before. A look of – pretend – surprise
came to his face. He stood up and shuffled away. The thinner man took his place at my feet – sorry, between my feet. This is how things are in the photographers’ pit at the end of the catwalk runway — whether it’s spring, autumn, Milan, Paris or London. You turn up early – very early. On this occasion, the mark-up time for the 180 accredited photographers was Wednesday 2pm for a Friday 9.30pm kick-off. You place a piece of tape on the ground and write your name on it. That will then be your (tiny, tiny) spot for all the shows. How are they allocated? Who says who gets the best spots? I asked Canon’s Frankie Jim before my stint in the pit. “There’s a gentlemen’s agreement.” That is, it’s an oligarchy run by old hands like the questioner at my elbow. “It’s a cosy business,” added Frankie. Very cosy, I learned. Tea-cosy cosy.
A former photographer from Ripon, Frankie is responsible for Canon Professional Services. He helped prep me for my shot at fashion show photography. I wanted to get an idea of what it’s like to take catwalk pictures. What’s needed to be good at it? How do you get a good picture in such an intense – and fashionable – environment?
I’ve taken photographs before, of course. I know what I’m doing, if only roughly.
But I’m a writer, not a photographer. I’d never taken pictures under fire, so to speak. Certainly not in a black-walled room – an enclosed and enclosing space where it feels like clocks should always chime midnight.
So Frankie and his team were looking after me. They gave me a camera. They set it on auto focus. More importantly, they gave me advice. “The skill is in the detail,” said Frankie. “The good photographers can capture models’ legs when they’re moving in the right way and their eyes aren’t blinking. They make sure they catch the model as she comes towards them, near the end of the catwalk.” Not easy, as I discovered. He took me to the Canon Pro Lounge, a room filled with photographers uploading, downloading, editing, while Canon technicians cleaned, repaired, advised and lent equipment. A slightly self-conscious non-pro, I edged past them to be handed my camera by Sundeep Singh. It was a big – or rather big – new Canon Eos 1Ds MkIII, plus 70-200mm zoom. Seven grand’s worth of heavy camera and a few thousand more of lens.
Sundeep took me to my spot in the pit, a coveted central one. As London Fashion Week’s ‘principal sponsor’, what Canon wants, Canon gets. I sat, hot and conscious of my amateurishness. I tried to look professional. No-one pointed at me and laughed. I studied the crowd. Fashion students, fashion journalists, people whose names are well known to Grazia readers – if few others. A Japanese woman with that eternally fashionable haircut, the Louise Brooks bob – short at the back, angular at the sides, black as sin. A man dressed in what looked like a flock of rainbow-coloured chickens. The fashion world is not for those without a wry and open-hearted appreciation of life’s passing parade.
Suddenly, it was showtime. Black-clad assistants lifted off the catwalk’s protective plastic sheeting. The music started. The models emerged through the proscenium arch and strode towards me. They were coming at me and coming at me. It felt like playing Space Invaders for the first time. I panicked, of course. I either shot too much or too little. I decapitated and cut off legs. I got models in the way of each other. When they arrived at the end of the catwalk, right in front of me, I kept missing the beat, only catching them as they started to turn. I gave myself the sack. Surrounded by long-in-the-tooth experts, I tried to follow – out of the corner of my eye – what they were doing. They waited, picked their moment. The hunter capturing the game. I did what they did – or, at least, tried to. Slowed down. Thought. Focused. Breathed. Shot. Watched. Considered. Rested the camera on my knees – it was as heavy and awkward as a baby. Lifted it up again. Looked again. Thought. Paused. Breathed again. Paused. Shot again.
It began to feel, well, not exactly fun, but thrilling and engaging. It was like learning to drive a car – that moment, say, when you find yourself able to change gear and check the mirror at the same time. You’re far from being even a competent driver, but the basics no longer require your complete attention. I was, I knew, no kind of a catwalk photographer, but I had a sense of how to do it. I’d made it far enough to feel a sense of familiarity, of an old skill being uncovered as much as a new one learned.
After what felt like an eternity, it was over. My hands were shaking with tension, excitement and exhaustion. Sundeep took the camera from me and fast-forwarded through the 200 or so images I’d taken in the show’s 15 minutes or so. He was silent, silent, silent. Then he said: “That one’s okay, isn’t it?” I’d done it. I’d shot a model. My mind racing with the adrenaline of my time in the pit, I found myself thinking about that phrase: shot a model. I’ve shot real guns, at targets and at real moving things and, as the adrenaline slowly ebbed, I realised that was the old skill I’d uncovered.
Odd – or even offensive – as it may seem, shooting models feels a bit like shooting pigeons, clay or feathered. You watch. You track. You figure out where and when to catch them. You do the maths, anticipating their movement between your decision and where you want to get them. You steady yourself. You fire off a shot. Sometimes you’re on target, sometimes not. And when you are on target, it’s exciting. The hunter capturing the game. I packed away, made an (excitable) phone call or two and went for a drink (or two). It was a while before my hands stopped shaking. The thrill of it all.
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