How to Shoot LFW

This week’s post is a bit more geared towards the bloggers and photographers out there, and is based on my own experiences. If you want to shoot London Fashion Week, then you need to be in the know - and not just everyone can get in.

The first thing to know is that it’s a bit of a Catch-22: you need experience to get in, but without getting in, it’s tough to get experience. The best way to nab yourself a ticket to a show or presentation is to get picked up by a magazine. You can then have your editor supply a cover letter, or apply on your behalf, to as many shows as you like.

It’s easy enough to get the contact details, as they are available right on the LFW official website. It can be a bit of a pain to navigate, but a press contact for all of the shows is supplied in PDF format, so just go through that and decide who you want to shoot. Remember to look at the schedule first: you don’t want to be in a situation where all of your invitations overlap and you can’t make some of them.

If you aren’t with a publication it is substantially harder to get invited. For some shows, you also have to pay an extra fee in order to join the photographer’s area. But there is one way to shoot LFW without any fees at all, though it’s getting a little harder these days.

Street style is one of the key elements of the week, and it’s something that is very much in-demand. If you can grab a space on the street to snap photographs of everyone coming in and out of the shows, and hanging around in their best outfits, you can probably get them out to a magazine or website that wants to feature them. This could give you a valuable in for next year. Unfortunately the move away from Somerset House has made street space very slim, and this means it’s harder to get the shots that you want. But if it was easy, then everyone would do it, right?

The biggest thing is to make time in your schedule and get down there. You never know who you’ll meet - bloggers, fashion stylists, and even designers can be wandering around outside the shows. Chat to them, and you could make some very useful contacts.

My images from the latest LFW are set to be published soon, so watch this space!