Selects from London Collections: Men A/W'14

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Time for one of my usual biyearly fashion posts, this time from the menswear version of fashion week. It's a more laid back affair compared to women's week with fewer people peacocking (this is my first time covering menswear). The parties were still just as fun and I met a few celebs throughout the three days it was on. As per tradition, I'll start with some street style and then post my favourite single show:

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Backstage at YMC:

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Now my favourite show from this season has to be Katie Eary's. The clothes were a wild mix of Savile Row tailoring and hardcore punk with a bit of Disney thrown in, and the soundtrack during the show was chock full of my favourite tunes - a highlight was Pixies' Where Is My Mind? playing as one of the models walked out in a straight-jacket.

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Katie Eary about to walk out to the applause, she was quite emotional

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For me I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be commenting on! There is a lot of photos that don't seem to tell a coherent story, if you'd gone back stage preping to front of stage result then Their would have been more of a flow.

The pictures where you have eye contact are all much stronger for me and I do like colours and the solid exposures I can't help feeling that a lot of them are just groups of people standing around not doing a lot.

Sorry to appear harsh, being honest I'm not the best person to offer feedback on these sort of shots as it's not an area I'm comfortable or strong in.

That wasn't harsh at all, it doesn't matter that it's an area you're not comfortable with, what matters is that your thoughts/reactions are being expressed.

Now, as for the disjointed nature of the post as a whole, it was meant to be an overview of what I've been shooting over the past week or so. It's only the last set that has any sort of coherence, but even then I admit that the narrative won't be clear at all if you're not versed in how fashion shows work - which will also partly explain why you feel that these photos are a bunch of people standing around. Going from backstage to front is logistically impossible at a show - I wouldn't be able to get the models in their first looks if I wanted a good spot in the pit.

If you pick some numbers that you want critique on then I can give something more details. As I said, not an area that I know much about so from my uninformed position here are a few token comments:

1 & 2) Not really sure what the subject is, what am I supposed to take form these?

They're street style pics, so not much really - just some documentation on what people look like during these events.

4) I want to see both shoes, having one shoe cut in half feels awkward.

I agree, I'm not too fond of it myself, but the shoes were cool.

6) Either the guy at the Mac needs to be in focus or the DoF needs to be far shallower. As it is it looks like you just missed the focus as I am not sure the 2 guys at the back warrant any more attention than the guy sitting.

My own spin: I was more interested in the gesturing going on between the two security guards than the guy at the Mac, but looking at it again it wasn't worth posting. Or maybe I'm still far too used to shooting in black and white so I'm attracted to subjects that would contrast a lot in terms of luminance? The guards would definitely stand out more against the rest of the midtones if I shot with B/W.

7) The blurred foreground back of the person is just too distracting, especially since it is white and the guys in the subject are all black and hide in the shadows. Getting a blurred foreground object not to be distracting is challenging. it almost works in 19) but the sharp subject is too small in the frame for me and there is a big empty space bottom left. Likewise in 20), but since the blurred foreground objects form strong straight lines this has an impact on the way I see the photo, especially with the white specular highlight in the center right that draws attention.

Fair points, do you think that it would help if I tried burning in the specular highlights in 20?

8) There is lot going on here. I would have done a much tighter crop. Use the cabinet on the left to actually form the left edge of the photo, not having more of the room continuing on to the left. Likewise cropping more of the top off so the subject (couple) are more dominant.

Yeah, I see what you mean. The cabinet's been bothering me as well.

10) Guy on the right, cutting right through is face at the eyes is very distracting to me.

Nice catch, I'll fix the crop when I put together my website.

BUT, as I said, I really don't know this genre and my critique could be a long way off the mark. These are just what I picked on in my mind. Taken in isolation my comments are probably worthless, if more people add similar critique then you can begin to think to yourself what we were seeing that we weren't happy about. Also, it is far easier to critique a photo like this done in real time fast moving environments than it is to take such a photo. I have photographed a couple of weddings and was very annoyed at certain compositions that I cou;d have done way better if I had time to think, but you don't.

You've given me some great critique actually, thanks for taking the time. As I've said before, simply airing out thoughts is a good thing to do, unless those thoughts are simply unconstructive trolling.

I'm a beginner so feel free to disregard any comments

#4 is the one that jumped at me, I think it would benefit from a better crop to rip out the black on the right hand side.

Thanks, I think I agree with D.Ps own view on it though - both shoes would have been much better.