“It’s crazy! Every year we say we are done and then we find ourselves back another season, running across streets, bolting out of UBERs that have been stuck in traffic to run down several blocks so we don’t miss the show! We get yelled at by traffic coordinators, we lose sleep, and stand in incredibly low temperatures: rain, hail, snow, all at the same time for it!”
I am chatting with my new friend at Fashion Week and it becomes obvious to us after talking a few minutes that the taxi cab we share to catch the Proenza Schouler show is not the only thing we share in common: We’ve both been shooting fashion week for more than 7 years, we both primarily shoot for ourselves(unpaid), we’ve both threatened to quit every season, and we are both here another season talking about how much we hate to love it!
I’m running on 4 hours of sleep after traveling for nearly 24 hours across continents and vast time zones, dropping my bags off at home and catching the 7 am bus to New York. I’m tired! to stay the least, and there seems to be no better time than when the adrenaline has calmed down, and I’ve clicked the shutter button on my fiftieth cool outfit at fashion week to ask myself what in the world I am doing here!
It is one of those questions you question back. “What do you mean what am I doing here?!” Nothing gets you more riled up than coming home from a two-month-long trip, fighting sleep to pack bags, sorting accommodation last-minute in New York, to attend a full day’s schedule of shows, while all your friends beg you to stay, only to arrive and ask yourself “what you are doing there”
But I needed to know.
I needed to know why I panicked when I forgot to take a spare SD card to shoot, why I was standing, with toes completely numb, in the freezing rain shooting, when paid photographers on assignment had decided not to show up because the weather was so bad.
When I apologized to Elaine Welteroth for getting her out in the rain to shoot her outfit and she responded “No, I feel bad for you guys. You guys HAVE to work in this terrible weather” I felt the angst again. Why did I HAVE to?
Because I love to! I can’t answer that as easily in the freezing cold or while I chase after one pretty outfit or the other because, well, I’m barely thinking at that moment, but I can say it every time I look at a photograph I shot: I love to capture people and their stories of fashion. It goes beyond bringing you back a trend report. It is the people and the art we create together. The beautiful clothes against the city backdrop and the opportunity to tell a story with it. It is the opportunity to change the narrative or at least add to it voices unheard. It is the colors, the creativity, and the collaboration between costume and photography to make art. I am here so that I can visually share yet another narrative with you.
Stay tuned for some of the best fashion trends and moments this season
With love,
