Fashion For Paws is a yearly charity event put on by the Washington Humane Society that combines fashion, fund raising and furry friends. Prospective runway models each raise money in part of a competition and the winners get to strut their stuff down the runway. This year’s event took place at the Italian Embassy (which is absolutely gorgeous) and I was there covering the event for Washingtonian Magazine.
This was my first time covering the event and it was definitely a learning experience. Traffic getting to the embassy was a mess and I ultimately decided to park my own car rather than wait for valet parking. This turned out to be a wise choice, saving me a good hour arriving and departing. The embassy was packed with people which made getting candid shots of the party-goers a bit difficult because there wasn’t much room to move around, especially in the main hall. But I found if I went to the rooms towards the exterior of the building, there was more elbow room.
Veteran photogs at this event knew to stake out their spot for the runway fashion early. i did not know this. So by the time I was done with my candid shots, all the good spots for the runway show were already taken. People were complaining about the lack of space (there were multiple TV cameras taking up most of the press space), so I decided to see if i could garb a spot at the beginning of the runway. After a bit of sweet talking to the very determined usher, she let me sit in the second row of seats since there were quite a few empty chairs. It wasn’t the best vantage point, but it was better than the back of the other photographer’s heads.
Snapping the models right as they came out proved to be a bit of a challenge. Some stopped and posed, others just came right out and started down the runway. Ultimately I deecided to turn off my flash and just use the light provided by the venue instead. This let me up my shutter speed to where I could freeze the action if I needed to. I tried getting shots of the models as they came back down the runway towards me, but this proved difficult due to all the spotlights that were aimed right into my POV. But it was good for a few photos, especially to see how the other photogs reacted to some of the models.
Be sure to check out the full slideshow and recap over on Washingtonian.com.
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