Exhausting, stressful, annoying but I'm going to miss it

Last show by Lino Villaventura. With the music, make-up art
and clothing design, his models looked like dolls coming out of a factory.

Since Monday June 16 at around 19:00 I have been taking either a taxi or car provided by Editora Abril to photograph celebrities at 48 different fashion shows of São Paulo Fashion Week. Ana Paula Rafanini and I published articles and photos in a blog for the Contigo! website.

Contigo! is a celebrity "gossip" magazine (I put gossip in quotes because we're technically not supposed to call it that - I guess their point is that people wont take us seriously).

Anyway, every day we woke up early and went to bed late. We worked 4 hours overtime every day, most days with no lunch. I felt like a fat, white, sweaty whale next to the gorgeous celebrities and models in their expensive designer clothes. I tried you know, one day I even slept with curlers in my hair. Never done that before!

I was never one to follow celebrities. I only know names like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston; I was also the last person to realize they were not dating anymore (like a year after the fact). So to recognize Brazilian celebrities who are on mediocre novelas was a challenge. My tactic? Wait until their is a huge mess of flashes and ugly men surrounding one beautiful person (or sometimes not that beautiful). My task? To fotograph them in a candid moment.

Photographing a celbrity in a candid moment is hard because most of them love the attention and as soon as they see you crouch with your camera up at your face they go into that ridiculous pose with their hand on their hip and their breast lifted and that wide smile as if to say "I love being here and I love fashion and I love you and I love paparazzi." I have great respect for people like Rico Mansur (Isabeli Fontana's boyfriend) for looking irritated every time we stampeded with our bright flashes in his direction. At least he's honest. I guess I do not blame them though, they need to sell their image to keep their career; much like I have to pathetically run after famous people - who, by the way, never did anything for me.

At first, I was not going to be payed for this work, but I'm glad that they realized what a slave I would have been. I do not think I would have lasted. By the third day, my whole body ached and my head was pounding. All I wanted was to close my eyes and get lost in a dream. It was so bad that Ana and I could not finish the day without that wonderful beer they served in the press room between 6:30 and 7:30. We later discovered a secret press room at the "Oi" stand (celular company in Brazil) that served beer until closing time. They also had wonderful desserts we could pig out on and not feel bad about because we never ate proper lunches.

It was mostly a pretty exhausting experience which lead to much stress between Ana and I, but now that I have slept in on a Tuesday, I'm thinking I will miss the event and I'm going to miss working 12 hours a day with Ana.

Check out the blog by clicking here. Some pictures we had to get from a different agency, but most of them are mine.