Will Robb Photography

Earlier on this year I photographed the autumn/winter collections in Tokyo fashion week. I was working with my friend and journalist, Paul Mcinnes and we were covering the shows for The Japan Times and Sportswear International magazine which apparently has a good spread (haven’t sen it yet, but looking forward to seeing it). It ended up being about 3 or 4 weeks of work, the main shows were only about 2 weeks, but we were covering a lot of the shows that were going on outwith the official fashion week period as Paul finds that a lot of the more interesting brands are to be found there. It was a busy few weeks, but I had fun doing it, mostly because Paul is a very easy guy to work with, he tells me in advance what he is looking for which makes shooting dead easy, in between shows we can have a good chat about what’s going on and more often than not there is a show debrief over a few drinks afterwards. Always a pleasure to work with him.

Shooting fashion shows isn’t too difficult. Other than a good level DSLR with a fast long lens and a tripod, the main thing you need is patience and adaptability. Usually I was at a show a minimum 90 minutes before it started, sometimes I would wait more than 2 hours. Why? To get a good spot. On a catwalk shoot you can have anything from 20-100 photographers crammed into a small space with you. If you arrive just as the show is about to start, you generally don’t get a good spot, so I always like to be early. A lot of the big names guys who have been doing this for longer than I have been alive get an assistant to come and wait for them and swan in 5 minutes before the start to have the best spot in the house that some poor soul has been standing on for hours (some assistants wait for 4 hours) to reserve for their boss. The unglamourous world of being a photo assistant, but if you want to get on as a fashion photographer it’s one of these things you have to go through I guess. Over time these assistants get a lot of contacts, learn how to light and shoot, so I guess it’s worth it in the long run. Anyway, I seem to be getting a lot more chilled as I get older, I didn’t mind the waits at all. When I could, I would read a book, if it was too dark, sometimes I would just sit and listen to my ipod. Very few of the other snappers at these gigs are friendly. They carefully guard their spots, don’t speak to you as you are a rival and will only mix with those from the same mag. Lighten up guys.

So, you’ve got the patience, next you need the adaptibility. Some of the venues were a bit odd, in tree lined paths outside baseball stadiums, in factory warehouses, even behind the canteen of a university. Outside in the spring months gets chilly, sometimes during the shows the smoke machines are too strong, in one show the whole room was filled with smoke and then the show started with minimum lighting so we couldn’t see the models for the first few minutes and many of the photographers were literally howling with rage. Expect the unexpected like a good boy scout. There are always good surprises as well, at the Shinmai collection show in Roppongi Midtown a humanoid robot came on to introduce the event. A rather interesting thing to see and photograph.

If you have patience and are able to adapt, the rest is pretty easy. It’s hard to get a bad shot actually, you’re photographing models in fancy clothes with their hair and make up all professionally done in venues that are mostly well lit, so hard to mess it up….touch wood.