I’ve been shooting photos at Junk 2 Funk for a number of years, and I am always impressed by the sheer warmth and joy of the event. It’s inspiring to see to many creative teenagers working together and supporting each other.

This is just a sampling of the photos I took at the Saturday matinee show. If you want to see even more, there is a huge album on my Savannah Unplugged Facebook page. Many thanks to photographer teacher Kinte Taylor for reaching out to me every year.

As a taxpayer, I’m proud to support a school like Savannah Arts Academy, which has a strong academic record and has provided a welcoming home to some kids who might not fit in so well in other schools. As a lecturer at Armstrong State University, I can say that I’ve been consistently impressed by the students that SAA molds. And I haven’t just been impressed by their academic prowess — Savannah Arts Academy turns out a lot of really nice young adults.

Sports obviously takes a backseat to the arts at SAA, where students across departments learn what it means to put their work on the line through performances like the wildly successful Junk 2 Funk, which handily sold out four shows in the school’s lovely old auditorium.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the shots I got from down front on opening night, so I popped back in with my zoom and stood in the back for the Saturday matinee. There were more models than ever this year, so things moved fast — and I simply couldn’t get good shots of all the looks, models, and designers. Given the number of quality photographers on hand, however, I’m sure we collectively covered just about everything . . .

OK, so this post has a few dozen of my favorite photos, but I am going to post — probably sometime between 2/3 and 2/6 — hundreds more photos to the Savannah Unplugged Facebook page (“likes” much appreciated). If you wish to use these photos for noncommercial purposes, I am giving that right, but I would ask that the watermark not be cropped and that links to this post or to the Facebook page be included. There are no backstage shots here, but I did get a few before opening night that I’ll post to Facebook.

I liked using Broughton Street for the runway shows, but that made quality photography tricky unless you pushed your way to the front or set up well before each show began. The scheduling got a little off, too, in part because of a hard rain shower just as the evening was getting underway.

So I went with the flow and didn’t spend as much time concentrating on shooting the runway shows as I did the last couple of years.

Of course, there are still runway shots here, but you’ll also see some of the Art Rise interactive drawing booth and of the three excellent bands that performed — I caught Matrimony in the VIP tent, GEMS on the Montgomery stage, and Dent May at the after-party at Ampersand. (GEMS also played a late set at Ampersand and Dent May also played on the Drayton Street stage.)

We will have a much larger post focusing on the bands at hissing lawns in the next couple of days.

More thoughts coming on Tuesday.

I’ll have more to say about the event in my City Talk column on Tuesday in the Savannah Morning News, so here I’m just posting some of my photos. I was seated in a great spot near the center of the runway, so I was able to get some shots from a variety of angles.

And I took a lot of photos, so this is just a quick collection that showcases the diversity of Savannah’s boutiques and of the work of independent designers who took part. I don’t know if I’ll do another post of photos here, but, sometime later in the week, I will certainly post many more to the Savannah Unplugged Facebook page. (“Likes” appreciated!)

Some of the models were easier to shoot than others — some moved a little more quickly and some didn’t stay in the center of the runway. But it looked like there were a dozen or more photographers well-placed to get great shots, and of course dozens more attendees were taking photos from their seats. I’m anxious to spend a little time exploring the images.

Anyway, enjoy these. I’ll be posting more either here or on Facebook in the coming days.

The big runway show, scheduled for Forsyth Park on May 1st, will for the first time include the work of local designers. Last year’s show at the Lucas Theatre included collections from participating retailers, but the showcase for independent designers was the following night at Dollhouse Productions. I enjoyed both events, but the separation seemed sort of unnecessary, arbitrary, and artificial.

The Savannah Fashion Week 2014 participating retailers include BleuBelle (owner Heather Burge is President of SFW 2014), Custard Boutique, J. Paige, James Gunn, Red Clover Boutique, Sara Jane Children’s Boutique, Satchel, Trunk 13, and Zia Boutique.

And here are this year’s participating designers (quoting today’s press release):

• Brooke Atwood presenting clothes from the second season of her Brooke Atwood collection — “modern day western wear meets downtown chic rock-n-roll”
• Catherine Fain showcasing her 2014 Spring Ramey Rhodes line inspired by a ‘jet-set’ attitude with pieces that are easily packable and wearable
• Cate Lyon, owner of Cate Lyon Studio
• Faith Thornburg, winner of ELLE Magazine’s Fashion Next Award, showing her bridal line inspired by the “romance of Savannah”
• Emily Bargeron showing pieces from her Mamie Ruth collection
• Kathryn Hayes presenting items from her Fall 2014 and Resort 2014 Mix Julep line, the later of which is inspired by the “steel magnolia”
• Nicole Edge, owner of Kleon’s Sewing Studio in Savannah, whose line is 60’s mod inspired
• Troy Allen, Savannah Arts Academy student and winner of the 2014 Junk2Funk fashion show, who’ll be showing his collection of sportswear inspired by ‘Cowboys vs. Indians’
• featured designer April Johnston, “Project Runway” and “Project Runway All-Stars” contestant, presenting her Mangled Courtesan line and who promises “a lot of surprise in this collection”

Here are a handful of shots I took from my seat at last year’s runway show at the Lucas:

And here are some shots from the Savannah Independent Designers show at Dollhouse:

This year there was an added wrinkle to Junk 2 Funk. Because of the threat of icy weather, the local public schools were faced with potentially nasty weather by afternoon on Tuesday, and the entire system was closed on Wednesday and Thursday. In other words, right at crunch time for student designers, models, and tech crew, they couldn’t even rehearse!

I attended the Saturday matinee show, and I didn’t really see or hear a glitch in the pacing, the lighting, the fashion, the models’ walks and timing. So much poise, so much talent.

If you get a chance to attend any of the SAA productions throughout the year, I really can’t recommend them highly enough.

Thanks to Kinte Taylor, Gif Lockley, and others, I manage to get press access. (For the record, I made a $10 donation when I picked up my press pass.) So I took a lot of photos.

In this post, I have a couple dozen of the ones that I liked best. I don’t know any of the students in these shots, by the way — they just seemed like the best photos. Sometime on Tuesday, I will post a much larger album of photos to Facebook.

You can obviously see this year’s theme “The Forces of Nature” reflected in the fashion.

Some of the lighting conditions got a little “hot” for the equipment and settings that I was using, so some of the whiter clothes didn’t photograph as well for me as some with more vibrant and darker colors.

And since I had some of my photos used without permission last week by The Weather Channel — click here to read about that and click here for an interesting discussion on the Savannah Unplugged Facebook page — I have decided to be very clear about how these photos should be used by others.

If you see a photo here that you want to post to your Facebook page or somewhere else, you have a couple of options: a) hit me up on Facebook (either Bill Dawers or via message to the Savannah Unplugged Facebook page or to my email billdawers@comcast.net), and I will respond by giving you the rights to use it for any noncommercial purposes, or b) give me a day to post the image to Facebook, and then you can tag and share the pic directly from the Savannah Unplugged Facebook page. Photographers don’t surrender ownership of images when they post them to Facebook, but using the service is a clear acknowledgement on the photographer’s part that other users will be able to share, comment, tag, etc.

If you want a much higher res version of any of these photos or any that I will post to Facebook on Tuesday, I am happy to send bigger files, time permitting.

By the way, I got decent shots of most — but certainly not all — of the looks in Junk 2 Funk this year. There were lots of other photographers at the shows, of course, so no worries there, I hope.

So here are just a couple dozen shots of the event, which finished with a wonderful dance featuring this year’s senior dance majors and some really nice moments as the designers took bows.

The lack of overarching corporate support prevented Gap and Banana Republic from participating in the Broughton Street event, which was certainly regrettable since they are both such large stores.

The SFN crowds on the street definitely seemed smaller than FNO the past two years, but there was some rain and thunder in the area early in the evening that likely hurt attendance. I completely missed hearing Make Westing perform on the Drayton Street stage because I was waiting for the weather to clear before biking down.

And it was the Jewish High Holidays, which certainly cut into the crowd.

But all in all, it seemed like a successful event.

The real key, of course, will be how the Broughton Street retailers and others who had popup shops feel about the night. Did they make some money? Did they cultivate some new customers?

I didn’t really take any photos except at the fashion shows — 2 on the Drayton stage and 2 on the Montgomery stage.

Both stages present some problems in terms of photography, and the first one of the night is especially tricky because there’s still so much light in the sky. I won’t belabor the difficulties since the photos speak to the issues better than I can.

I’ve got considerably more photos than this. So I’ll post these and additional ones to the Savannah Unplugged Facebook page in the coming days. If you want to identify a model or a retailer’s collection, you can do so in the comments here or in the tags/comments later on Facebook.

If you want to share one of these photos, please don’t just pull down and repost the smaller size thumbnail below. I can send you a larger one (billdawers[at]comcast.net), or you can just wait till you can share them easily on Facebook. I’ve had some issues in the last few months with people downloading photos I’ve posted to the blog without permission and then posting them elsewhere without providing links back to this site. Not cool.

Anyway, here are some of the best of the photos that I got of the runway action.

Even if you care little about fashion and never shop in any of Savannah’s boutiques, you’re almost certain to have a good time. Broughton Street will be shut down and pedestrianized between Montgomery and Drayton, plus there will be stages at both ends with DJs, fashion shows, and live music.

The people-watching is going to be great, just like it was the last two years for Fashion’s Night Out, and it’s sort of thrilling just to walk down the middle of Broughton Street on a late summer night.

If you have to drive into town, the City of Savannah is offering $2 Parking in the Bryan Whitaker, Robinson, and State garages. There’s also free parking in the Civic Center lot, just a short walk down Barnard from the action.

For more information and for newsy updates as we near the event, follow Savannah’s Fashion Night on Facebook and on Twitter.

Thanks to Blake at Dollhouse Productions for sending along the detailed lineup for Thursday evening:

Montgomery Stage
6:30: DJ Will Rock
7:30: Fashion Show

• fab’rik
• Trunk 13
• Goodwill
• Copper Penny
• J. Paige
• Go Fish
• Lucy Lu’s

8:00 Flau’ge
8:30 DJ Will Rock
9:30 Finale Fashion Show with Saskatchewan

Drayton Stage
6:30: DJ Boo Doo
7:00: Make Westing
7:30: DJ Boo Doo
8:30: Fashion Show:

• Bleu Belle
• J. Parker
• Red Clover
• Sara Jane Children’s
• Half Moon Outfitters
• Kathi Rich
• Veronica’s Closet

9:00: DJ Boo Doo
10:00: Finale Fashion Show with Cousin Dan

Here’s a taste of Saskatchewan:

And here’s Cousin Dan:

Make Westing is an excellent young indie rock trio based here in Savannah. Flau’ge is a female rapper.

Last year, there were three fashion shows on each stage, which was really a bit much even for spectators. I can only imagine how demanding that schedule was for the production teams, especially since it was a pretty hot night. Two fashion shows on each stage make a lot more sense.

I will update this post if new information becomes available.