Over a coffee at the Mercer Hotel about three weeks ago, Marcelo Junemann, founder & editor in chief of BIG magazine, asked me if I was interested in “covering” one or two of the shows during fashion week in New York. I really had to give it a few minutes of thought. At that point I had not even been to a show before, and I certainly had little interest in trying to do runway photography and competing with my colleagues for coveted square inches of prime location in the photographer’s box. He assured me though that he was only looking for my own personal take on a fashion show, that I could do whatever I wanted and he handpicked the shows that were of obvious interest to me, due to location and let’s call it “production value”. Subsequently on my list were: Moncler at the Wollman Rink in Central Park and Thom Browne at the New York Public Library, both produced by Etienne Russo, and Michael Kors produced by Alexandre de Betak. Yes, I did miss Marc Jacobs by Rachel Feinstein…
I was taken by complete and welcomed surprise, that this assignment has become one the most exciting projects in past years. Seeing the vision, choreography, lighting, music and fashion come together for those few minutes reminded me of some of the inspiring performances I had seen of the Frankfurt Ballett by William Forsythe over twenty years ago when I was still living there. Standing on a rock in Central Park during rehearsals for the Moncler show, Gershwin playing and snow beginning to fall, it was like being part of the opening scenes of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”: It was majestic, epic, awe-inspiring. For a few seconds, I “knew”, there was no place on earth that could possibly be more exciting than the spot I was capturing that very moment from with my camera.
Marcelo was kind enough to let me post a few of the images on my site as a sneak-peak, until the story has been published in BIG.
Thank you Marcelo!
Photographer's Box at Michael Kors