My Experience in Fashion Week Connecticut

Getting approved to partake in Fashion Week Connecticut came with a lot of joy. With very little experience in real runway shows (I had done a couple of random and very informal ones in Cuba), it felt like an opportunity to get involved in a different style of photography.

Furthermore, it felt like a great networking platform, where I could meet other lens professionals and some models to work with in the future.

However, I suffered the first setback when I realized that the dates where it was going to take place were all school nights. For me, that meant that it was very unlikely for me stay for the whole show because they were all scheduled to end t around 10pm. A drive from Hartford back home normally takes 20-35 minutes, so I would be getting to bed roughly at around 11:30pm, which was definitely something was not going to be willing to do.

The second major hurdle I found was that all major events were going to be in New Haven. That definitely was making things worse on my end: New Haven is way farther than Hartford, and to cap things off—in a bad way—I had parent-teacher conferences that week.

Ergo, I found myself almost unable to attend any events. So, I decided to  give priority to three of them: Wednesday in New Britain, Thursday in Hartford (at a secret location to be revealed later) and Friday in Hartford.

Wednesday’s event got cancelled and on Thursday (even though I received an email letting me know of the secret location) I left school too late to go on a drive to Hartford, not knowing when the show was going to end and when I would be back.

Frustrated but far from discouraged, I set my sights on Friday. The weekend events were going to be in New Haven again, and my week at school had been too intense for me to simply not rest and go for a drive. In other words, I was set up for “one shot”.

Friday came, and I headed to the location, getting there at 6:00pm, which—based on the first email that I had received—was the time as they said to arrive at least one hour before the event. However, after testing the lights and looking at the place, I made a few observations that led me to rethink how I was going to approach the event.

The photographer’s pit was small and visibly crowded, and the best spots were already taken by regular photographers who were known to the organizers and had been to Fashion Week several times. In addition, I realized that once the show started there was not going to be a way out of the pit, which I always feel is a major hurdle for mobility.

I also felt that if I decided to stay there I was going to get similar photos to those of the other photographers, most of whom were clearly more experienced than me both in fashion in general and this event in particular.

That’s why I made a bold decision: I set myself up in the corridor behind the seats of paying attendants to take pictures of the models as they walked past the runway: no direct lights, not a single stare at me. In other words, from the expectators’ point of view.

Although I must say that there is no way my photos actually match the effort the models put into it, they actually offer a view alternative to the one most photographers captured.

Despite the few things that can be criticized about the event, I consider it was a growing and learning experience and probably opened a new avenue for my creative endeavors. Experimenting with a different type of photography is always going to be something I am open to.

These are some of the photos I took.