Sonny Vandevelde

BACKSTAGE CATWALK BAISEMAIN

For those of you, who may or may not been aware, plenty of my photographic sources are from Sonny Vandevelde's fantastic collection of backstage catwalk photos, and his exhibition opened backstage in Melbourne as part of the L'oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival and for those who missed my previous post on Sonny Vandevelde.

Janet Burns quoted from the Sydney Herald, about Vandevelde whom 'doesn't work at the sleek, neat, choreographed end of the catwalk where models pause and pose prettily before twisting away, job done. He works at the other end, the "wrong" end, behind the catwalk's scenes, in the cacophonous storm that rages at the back of a fashion show's relative calm. He shoots amid the racket and chaos of a hundred or more models, make-up artists, hairdressers, stylists, dressers, designers and assistants, all hell-bent on their part in producing those perfect moments at the "right" end of the catwalk.

I every so often, don't embargo a same feel of an outfit just via looking through the catwalk photos. The photo's Sonny captures behind the scenes, brings out a more personal aura of an outfit and focuses more on the personality of models whom are often seen smiling backstage, providing energy to the photos and letting the personalities of the models shine through. 

And what I like about Sonny Vandevelde is that he seems to have a dedicated relentless ethos with 'surfer dude' free spirited approach of making backstage models feel at ease, in order for us to see more natural photo's of the models being themselves, and it would be fascinating to see Sonny receive more creative control whether it may be on an editorial or backstage arena.