Church coffers swelled by catwalk cash: 13th March 2013

The United Reformed Church of Melbourne held its annual Fund Raising Fashion Show on Wednesday 13^th March at the church rooms, Melbourne.

The Annual Show had been organized by Barbara Nadin for the past 10 years, Barbara was born and grew up in the village and is a member of the Social Committee at the Church where they organize events for the village.

All the models were members of the Church community, or family and friends, although in previous years the Revd. Jane Barron has been known to take her place in the line up.

The event was attended by approx. 30 members of the local community and Church, who were entertained by the models who took to the catwalk with professionalism & gusto.

A small entrance fee was charged and a raffle organized to raise funds for the Church, the money raised will go towards building repairs and Church renovations.

Clothes for the event were provided by SOS Clothing Company who obtain their clothing from top fashion chains such as Next, M & S, Dorothy Perkins & Next to name a few. The clothing consisted of current fashions at knock down prices with some items on sale for as little as £5.

There were clothing bargains for all ages and  this is definitely an event to put into your diaries for next year…

Summary:

The brief for this assignment was to go along to this event, held in the United Reform Church Hall and take photos of 'anything relevant'.  As usual arrived a little early to check the location and lighting and to chat to the organiser to gain some information about the event and names of the key organisers and participants. The room was already set out with some visitors already in place. The catwalk was surrounded by chairs and so I had my reservations about how easy it would be to get close to the models on the catwalk. Lighting was also a concern, the hall had very high ceilings and the available light was poor.

I was using my Canon EX430 II flash on Camera, however I did find that during the fashion show, it was difficult to get close enough to the models for the flash to be really effective, I needed to be much closer than I managed to get or to have more powerful lighting.

Before the start of the event I managed to get all the models to pose for me, this was in a pokey back room with all their clothes hanging on the walls, however, the resulting shots that I managed to get worked well and as the ceiling was much lower I could bounce the flash thereby avoiding shadowing behind the models.

The images that I did get of the actual show itself I was not overly impressed with,  the lighting was poor so I had to use a wide aperture, I could not get close enough to get a clear shot of the models so I had the back of the audience's heads in the shots. A major problem was also that the models were family and friends and did not really work the catwalk (as the terminology goes) so they looked awkward which did not create great images. However, as the paper only used the lineup shot which they really liked and was definitely the best image, it was not a major problem.

Most press photographers would have the experience to know that they had the image for the paper after this early shot and then leave. As I am fairly new to this type of photography, I like to hang around in case I can get further great images. Tonight, this was not the case.

Equipment & Camera Settings:

Canon 50d DSLR, Canon EX430 II Flash 

1/125sec; 22mm - 43mm; f/5.6 - f/11

debraburgess-lim  LRPS