Inside the photographer's pit at Fashion Week

The "Pit" at Fashion Week is a whole community unto itself. I never did do an official count, but the number of photographers and videographers there, depending on the runway show, must have been between 40 to 60, all crammed into a space that's just slightly longer than the width of the runway.

There were Nikons and Canons, Monopods, tripods, 300mms, CF cards, laptops, tiny chairs, camera bags, and who knows what else. Newspapers, magazines, networks, blogs, agencies. It was a motley crew of people whose passion in life it is to look at things though lenses (often big ones).

Spending a week in such close company with my fellow image-makers was a bit of an uncomfortable experience due to awkward seating and cramped conditions, but you come to know each other and form a kind of bond, at least with those you're sandwiched next to each day.

Just before the last runway show on the final day of Toronto Fashion Week, I decided to pass around my point and shoot camera with instructions for each member of the photo pit to make a self-portrait. This actually was a lot harder than it should have been, (ever played the "telephone game"?) The result is a collection of mostly out of focus pictures (I didn't think to enable "face recognition"). They're often slightly bad, with direct flash, some are banal, others expressive, but as a whole they form a collective image of the people who spent the last week together, all shooting the same thing.