Hammer City Fashion and Rock and Roll

Morgan in evening wear

Blackbird studios had a showing tonight of their fall winter 2010 line. Among the models featured were some of the Hammer City Roller Girls. As usual it's always good to see them and photographing a fashion show is always kind of fun.

The venue was dark. Luckily I brought some external flashes. Unfortunately I didn't bring enough remotes. So I only had one slaved flash. There was a point that I attempted to use a second flash but it was tripped by other photographer's flashes. I didn't have enough time to set it up properly.


Ginger St. James sings to the audience

With the one flash I probably got the best photos at the venue as none of the other photographers brought extra lights. Yay me!


Brandi-Lee shows off one of the Blackbird Studios T-shirt prints


Buckshot Bebe and Kiki, Blackbird studios designers

Oribe

Fashion editor of FAB, Max Macdonald interviews hairstylist Oribe Canales.

Oribe, for those not in the know, is not just a hair stylist he is one of the best and renowned the world over. Mainly from working with well known celebrities and photographers (see his wiki page here). At the time of the interview I didn't know any of this. It was just another assignment for FAB.

Max had been going on about him as soon as he knew he was going to interview him. I blocked most of that out. When photographing people I'd rather just concentrate on the person and not how famous they are. After all when dealing with famous people you treat them like any other person. If they're nice to you, you're nice back. If they're crumby to you hopefully you don't spend a lot of time with them and move on.


Oribe talks to Max about Justin Bieber's doo (among other things).

From the interview and spending a short moment taking photos afterwards I have this to say. Not only is Oribe well dressed, well mannered, with great stories, he is also a very gracious open individual. Max and I found the time we had with him to be too short. Personally I could have listened to his celebrity stories for hours. We didn't even get to ask him about his work with some of the more famous American photographers.

It was a real privilege to be able to meet him even if only briefly.

Andrew Majtenyi collection SS2011

Oh yeah, it's halloween.

In the morning James, Katie and I went to some school where they had pies. I'm sure there was some other thing going on but really who can tell when there are pies at $2 a slice? After filling up on eight dollars worth I was ready to start my fashion filled day.


James and Katie surrounded by kids.


Pies!! Loads of pies!!


Yummy chocolate pies.


Some embassy pies


In case I forget where it is or what it looks like.

So I'm going to write a big thank you to James and Katie (or Katie and James) for allowing me to crash in their wonderfully geeky home, provide tickets and directions for the Ottawa bus, the transport from the venue and inviting me to go to the school of pies with them. You guys are awesome... and yes Ottawa does own a piece of Bagelhot officially.


Ottawa Transit bus tickets.


Bus receipt


Bus (N45 24.195 W75 44.038)


Bus stop


Canal (N45 25.466 W75 41.674)


Biking in the rain


The underpass to the Westin Hotel


In the lobby


Along came a spider...


National Gallery

The Andrew Majtenyi collection


Patrick does some last minute alterations

I spent the day behind the scenes photographing models getting ready for Andrew's collection. Hair, make up, getting in and out of clothes, the whole craziness that most people don't see and aren't aware of. What model is getting ready for what catwalk, who is wearing what, does the hair style and make up match, are the clothes ironed, coordinating the team of volunteers required, it's all quite amazing.



I have to say that I was quite impressed with the hair make up teams. They didn't have any real lighting at the National Gallery set up so the hair make up people had to do all their work using work lamps. Work lamps are n0t that great when using on constructions sites but at least you might be able to see where you're hammering in a nail. For make up? A work lamp is terrible. eeesh.














The volunteers for Andrew's collection















To see the entire collection of Andrew Majtenyi for this season (and to purchase prints) go to the Bagelhot Photo Store.


The rest of the day



After the showing of Andrew's collection I figured I'd just take photos from outside the photo pit of the other designer's collections. It's been a while since I've had the chance to do this. Generally I've had to go into "shrimp" mode in the photo pit and stay there in order to take photos of the different collections. You can't just hop in and out of the photo pit willy nilly. You're either in or out. Depending on where you are it's not always possible to get into the pit and generally it's bad photo etiquette to jump in and out during a show as you're moving other photographers around.
















Raymond, the other photo thug from Toronto (the other being me).

At one point yesterday some guy jumped into the front of the photo pit photographers to photograph the catwalk. He rudely blocked at least five other cameras that had been in position since the start of the collection. Raymond and I started yelling "Hey, hey HEY!" at him until he moved. I refrained from calling him a douche bag or taking a swipe at him with my monopod. I think some of the hate from Toronto fashion week was coming out. The other photographers from Ottawa were too polite to really get upset. It's from this that Raymond and I designated ourselves as the photo thugs from Toronto.


The photo pit





Lisa Marie Noseworthy


You may know her as the photographer of popular children's books such as "Pigs to Pork"

I want to thank Lisa Marie Noseworthy for her halloween party,the half pizza, and all the cookies to eat (yes even the cracked but fixed with icing ones). Food is such a great thing after a long day of photography.