Miami Swim Week 2019
Shooters I’m back!
If you weren’t aware, Swim week took over Miami for the past 10 days and what a time. I’ve worked fashion shows in the past, both DC and NY fashion weeks but this was my first experience shooting swimwear shows. If I’m being honest, this experience has been my favorite fashion experience to date. From the production of the actual shows, to the plethora of designers and witnessing their creative vision, to shooting and meeting new models and others that I have been watching for some time, and also making new friends, Miami SwimWeek was a much needed step in the right direction.
What was nicest to see was the culture around fashion changing within sessions of these Swim Week castings and shows in 2019. In the past, most runways shows consisted of largely European models gracefully strutting down the runway with one or two women of color holding positions in the final production, which made castings a nightmare for the other women of color with aspirations of a modeling career. The other stigmas were that height, weight, age & culture were to be defined within a very specific boundary. What I saw this year, though culturally way behind the times, was the inclusion of women of color, women with more life experience, women with children and women representing cultures that the world overlooks.
Funny enough, the conversation in the audiences and on the streets after the shows was how much more work there is to be done, not to appease anybody’s specific desires but to reflect the actual world around us even more. Walking from show to show, through the crowds at the open bars at each show was an eclectic group of people representing a wide spectrum of human beings but at the show, though more inclusive than ever before, the production was still limited to just beyond the traditional criteria of what to expect at a fashion show. We, as humans, must do a better job of demanding that our entertainment and the art we choose to consume, better reflect the world that we all experience.
The irony in all of this is that I believe we have our fatuous leader as president to thank for this newfound cultural awareness.
The biggest lesson I could take away from this experience was that without risk, you limit your reward. The media pit during fashion shows is equally as loving, sharing and empowering as it is cutthroat. The dynamic of the pit is mostly of respect and compromise as you share space - usually in front of, behind, right over your shoulder and anywhere else a shooter can fit. There are veteran shooters sitting next to novice, hobbyists sitting next to professionals. And because of this dynamic, you tend to create unique relationships with those around you, which can be either a help or hinderance. At the end of the day, personal hunger and desire are what will fuel those that take it to the next level, beyond the fashion shows and into the backstage scene or on-location shoots.
