fashion board

Mississippi State University Fashion Board by Blake McCollum

And so it comes to a close, another great year with Mississippi State University Fashion Board. For some of you who might not know anything about Fashion Board, and are thinking "What is Fashion Board?" Let me tell you a little about it. It's a group of like minded college students ranging in majors from merchandising and fashion design to education and engineering. It's a melting pot of awesome people from all over the country coming together to do great things including bringing the community together through advertising local vendors and promoting shopping local. Honestly it's just great people.... period. Most well known for their fashion shows they do in and around campus, I have photographed shows themed from Beyonce, Circus, Masquerade, Alice in Wonderland to True Maroon, DJ Battles, and the forever famous Trashion Shows. Now you might be wondering how I got my connection with these people. I have been photographing Fashion Board now since 2009 when I did my first show with them. I was randomly asked when I was just transferring to MSU to photograph a show and it has snowballed since. 
I have met some amazing people through fashion board and made some life long friends. Some that have went on to pursue careers in TV, modeling, styling, and anything else you can imagine. Many of these people have ended up in my personal work as well like my Down at the Water's Edge series along with my recent Carnival editorial.  Thank for another great year Fashion Board and to my seniors that are leaving after this year, it's been fun! I wish you all the best in your upcoming years and Hail State. 


La Mode Bohème poster for this show (I will have a future blog post on the making of this image)

La Mode Bohème poster for this show (I will have a future blog post on the making of this image)

Photo Credit: Joyce Li

Photo Credit: Joyce Li

Seniors + Photobombing Gl0tron

Seniors + Photobombing Gl0tron

Old and new executive board. 

Old and new executive board. 

As far as the lighting setup goes for these shows. They stay relatively the same but I try and mix it up with different rim, hair,  and fill lights. You can go back to the top where I linked my first show where I believe I was using a single shoot through umbrella to camera right. I have upgraded a bit to a three light setup. This time with one white bare beauty dish high and to the left. I mix up my gel filters for background lights and went blue and purple this time trying to follow the decorations along with the earth day theme. I'm not 100% sure on exact color #'s.... I usually just say "yeah that color looks good" when I hold it up and look through it. Both rim lights were bare 7" reflectors. Like I said I shoot each show a bit different but the diagram below shows for the better part of how this one worked. 
Shot on a canon 5d iii with an 85mm 1.2L lens. Shot at F3.2, ShutterSpeed 1/200, ISO 50.