Last night I attended Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), modaitalia 2006. You may view the pictures in my gallery, let me know what you think.

Mark Velenton was the winner last night and is awarded with a 2 week scholarship with the world-renowned Palimoda fashion institute in Florence, Italy. Mark was one of 20 finalists on the night to present their “Italy inspired” designs to a judging panel of experts and professionals.

I was positioned in possibly the best spot for photos last night, standing in front of one of the large spotlight stands, slightly off centre in front of the catwalk. It is always good to get a in front of a stand as you don’t have to worry about blocking people’s view from behind.

I was using a Canon 28-135mm IS 3.5-5.6 USM on my Canon 20D at ISO 800 on shutter priority at 125th of a second, without a flash. This lens isn’t the sharpest of zoom lenses compared to the canon L series lenses but worked quite well in this lighting. Most of the other photographers were using a flash but I think you lose the theme of the night in the shot. Plus I wanted to get more practice manually focusing in low light. Typically you aren’t allowed to use a flash at indoor events such as parades and concerts.

Anyways, this was a big night of shooting, I took about 680 shots, and got about 500 unique and decent shots of them. There are some shots from the “modaitalia spectular” featuring designer label work late in the shoot after the students, which I shot in JPEG. All I can say is, never again! Shooting using JPEG indoors and night is extremely time consuming to edit and you usually get inconsistant grading and levels. I only used JPEG to keep memory consumption down. Never again. I’d much prefer 1 good shot than several crap shots that need lots of editing.

Check out the photos here and tell me what you think, keep in mind that you will need to order these photos from ICCI.