LMFF: L'oreal Melbourne Fashion Week

It's that time of the year again with Fashion Weeks across the major cities and Melbourne is no different. Festivities started on the 14th and already some interesting trends are showing up especially whimsical kooky designs the likes of Alice in Wonderland would be proud of.

Yesterday I caught one of the runways at Federation Square- Review presents 'fun, flirty, feminine and fashionable in bold rose florals, chic laces, and sharp shoulder silhouettes in blush pinks, vibrant purples, jewelled teals and royal blues'. 

Excuse the off-focus. I arrived slightly late, and clambered up a raised platform while bumping (painfully) my knee at the same time, but it's quite a good view! 

The deep vibrant teal has been quite popular last year, here it is paired with lace in two -just-brushing-the-knees dresses.

A quick peek at the crowd, all taking photos and rather subdued due to the heat but there were excited murmurs throughout the show and after. 

I really love the structured jacket (left second image). The black dress on the left of first image was the final piece, it's too bad I couldn't get near enough to catch the lace details.

Beautiful little open back dress on the right and large necklace piece. Too cute.

Final walk! While the show only lasted for half an hour it was still quite lovely to be there =)

For more information and to purchase tickets to LMFF, go to http://www.lmff.com.au/

Hail

When I first came to Melbourne I laughed in disbelief as someone told me about Melbourne's four seasons in a day. I soon retracted that, it's absolutely no joke. Nowhere in any other city would it rain with blustery winds, pelt innocent passerbys with hailstones the size of fists and then clouds part away to become a hot summer day.

At the moment we're still experiencing a very long summer. The days are intensely hot to the point that it just swelters and nothing can be done without feeling decidedly sick from heatstroke.

A week, two weeks (how the days pass quickly) ago without any warning large icy hailstones simply poured for a full fifteen minutes in the middle of the afternoon. All one could hear were the rapid thud-thud-thud of the stones and the city disappeared in a foggy mist. How scary, I was immensely glad I was safe at home!

Professionalism

Issues of (un)professionalism are abound in every photography or art related forum and since we live in an age where almost everyone are connected via the internet it's easy to see that the same problems affect everyone even across the globe. Some of the biggest and most volatile issues revolve around 'people not fulfilling their end of the bargain especially with trade shoots', 'flaking where one or more people does not show up to a shoot', 'people behaving inappropriately on set or making others feel uncomfortable' and etc.

Recently there was a thread where someone asked 'what is professionalism?' Professionalism means different things to different people and you don't have to be a professional in order to act like one (and it doesn't mean simply charging for your services- that is being a working professional. This is about behavior and attitudes and how you present yourself).

To me it's rather simple and it can be hard but I believe in doing what's right and treating everyone around me in a manner I'd like to be treated myself. It means being polite, keeping communications clean and clear and being considerate of others and their opinions. It means keeping promises and being honest and bringing your best to the table. There are obviously situations where I simply cannot plan for and in some cases I have to make decisions that I won't necessarily want to do or like doing but I just have to try my best to do what's fair. In some cases I have to bend over backwards, in others I have to stand my ground and to be professional I have to make these decisions every day. Photography is a social industry and while I lament about how I -just- want to keep my head down and shoot beautiful concepts, reality is that I have to speak to people, to work with them and to confront people every day. Since I can't control how other people act or behave or think of me, I just have to make sure I do what feels right.

Sometimes I get disheartened when hearing about the stories of how yet another person have reneged on their words, or acted badly whether before, during or after a shoot. Sometimes I get extremely frustrated when I encounter similar situations during my own work. It's a big learning process because dealing with people and not-nice-situations and being professional is something that should be and can be learned. When you're a new shooter and trying to break into an industry that's all about networking, it's extremely scary because there's all these etiquette and rules seething beneath the surface and gets blown every so often and you can make major faux-pas everywhichway you turn. It doesn't mean I shouldn't -try- and atleast that's a start.

And sometimes it's about keeping your head down and just shooting beautiful concepts.