Burton College Fashion Shoot 2012

James Woodings and I were commissioned by Kerry Wilkinson from Burton Chamber of commerce and Emma Strange Course Leader of Burton and south Derbyshire college to produce a set of images for their BSDC 2012 fashion show. The show which is part of the college's annual Creative studies Arts exhibition was held at Burton Town Hall from 18-22nd June

I was granted permission by Kerry Wilkinson to publish some of the images from the night on my blog for course work purposes only

I was given a brief from Emma to produce some ambient light images of the night without the use of any kind of flash or any artificial lighting. The purpose of this was to record the ambiance of the show which would highlight the coloured lighting and smoke effects generated which contributed to the atmosphere of the evening

I decided to use a Canon 5D Mk 2 Full frame camera to record the images. I choose this camera because of it's low light capabilities which enabled me to use really high end ISO speeds without to much noise being evident in my images. This camera is renown for producing excellent quality low light images without the inclusion of hardly any noise at all. The majority of the images were recorded at 4000 ISO and about 30 at 5000 ISO
I was still able to hand hold my camera at these high end ISO's which still enabled me to use a shutter speed of 125th of a second which eliminated any blurred images

The show was lit by a variety of coloured flashing spot/laser/lighting and which played havoc with my camera's light meter. Using my camera's built in light meter under these challenging conditions threw the rule book out of the window and I had to use all of my skill and judgement to conjure up the correct exposures for the images. Thrown into the mix were intermittent blasts of theatrical smoke which made my exposures even more tricky and challenging

I found the assignment to be fairly challenging but well within my capabilities. The images shown here were all straight out of camera with just a small amount of sharpening applied

in Photoshop. All were shot with ambient light which which gives a true representation of the ambience of the evening

James and I decided on two approaches to record the images. Jim would be positioned on the rear balcony of the Town Hall looking down onto the models. We decided Jim would record all the formal shots some with flash and some without using a Canon 70-200 F4 Zoom Lens. Jim would record the more narrow angle shots of the models mainly walking on their own along the catwalk.

We agreed I would shoot the more wide angled shots close up to the stage including groups of people,  the building and the lighting. To achieve this I used a Canon 24-105 L series wide angle zoom lens. Most shots were taken with 4000 ISO 

The shots above were taken more to portray the ambience and atmosphere of the event. I wanted the viewer to feel the atmosphere of the evening. Using any kind of flash lighting would have ruined the shots which would have washed out the colours and illuminated the smoke to intensely. I angled some of my shots which gives the viewer a more interesting perspective and view point of my subjects

I found the models easy to photograph on the evening and there was plenty of time to compose my shots. I moved in very close to the stage edge and most shots were recorded 3-4 feet away from my subjects. Using an aperture of mainly F4 enabled me to let enough light into the camera and still use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze any action

I had to shoot my images quickly and efficiently as I was standing in front of the main audience at the venue. I was crouching down mainly just below and in front of the models. I chose this location and position as to give the maximum amount realism to my shots. Shooting any further back would have included people and rows of seating which would have reined the shots. I was able to steady my camera on the edge of the stage  for some of the images

Overall I was very pleased with the majority of images recorded on the night. I shot the images in raw + jpg which gave me the option and  versatility to manipulate the images even further in Photoshop. Shooting in raw enabled me to select a number of different white balances should I have needed them

The client was very pleased with the images shot on the evening and James and myself received very positive feedback from Emma who had requested the images. Emma has used and distributed a lot of the images from the shoot amongst students from her college to use in their course work's and projects