Hello again!

So many of the most common questions I get relate to taking photos at Conventions (since that’s where I meet most people!). So I figured the first informational blog I do should be around this! I think that’s where most people start out doing cosplay photography too, so it makes sense :3

I’m not going to talk about how you choose who to photograph because that’s totally up to you, different people are drawn to different cosplays/cosplayers for different reasons. I will say one thing that can put me off photographing someone is a bad wig. That doesn’t mean I think their cosplay is bad, but if I’m taking photographs of someone and the wig is bad quality or doesn’t fit properly the photo is never going to look fantastic! Otherwise, most people are fair game for my camera! Though if a cosplayer stands out I’m probably more likely to be drawn to them, that’s human (photographer) nature I’m guessing.

Anywho, things to consider when doing cosplay photography at a convention. (Though these would probably be good regardless of whether you’re at a convention or doing a regular shoot).

Background

Pat attention to what is in the background of the shot. One of my pet peeves is having people in the background, it spoils the illusion of your photograph. ‘Oh look, there’s Elsa, she looks so beautiful! Oh wait…isn’t that Naruto in the background…?’.
Recently at Alcon I took some pictures with people in the background because everyone tended to be in a rush so I couldn’t drag them away :P
But my general rule of thumb is you can probably move someone maybe a foot away from where they are and have no-one in the background, which is much more preferable I think if you want to create the idea with your image that this IS the character.

Next up, try and think about what you DO want in your background. Conventions are so tough for this sometimes. I tend to find one place then drag everyone to it if it works because a lot of cons just have buildings everywhere (which is fine if your character lives in a place like that!). If I can find a place that has woodland/grass/trees that’s usually good for a lot of photos, and then a decent brick wall which has enough but not too much light. Those two places usually cover you nicely, and you probably won’t find much better at a con (in England anyway). 

Try and use a background appropriate for the character you’re shooting where possible. At Kitacon we found a woodland area outside, which looked pretty sorry for itself, but worked well for the San shoot we did. I understand San is usually surrounded by much thicker woodland but sometimes you have to compromise ;) This woodland area was surrounded by buildings, so all you need to do is use angles so as to not get those building in shot and it looks like you could be in a much bigger woodland. It’s all about creating that illusion.

Another option is always a hotel bedroom if you're staying at the con, but again, lighting can be a pain, but I find with hotel bedrooms you can get a lot of natural light from the windows :)

When you're using a brick wall you can make it more interesting by having the cosplayer leaning against the wall in different ways and taking the shot from the side instead of it just looking like you've asked someone to stand in front of a wall.

Really struggling to get a decent background? You can always do a close up that fills the frame so the background becomes irrelevant. I love these kinds of shots anyway :)

Lighting

Lighting problems depend on how you like to shoot I often find. So I don’t like to shoot indoors really without proper lighting, that’s just my preference. I also hate flash. So yeah, outdoors and natural light, or in a studio is where I like to be shooting.
If you are going to be going between indoors and outdoors and you’re using a DSLR, just remember to keep checking your settings to make sure you’ve got the right white balance, ISO etc. I don’t have a normal digital camera, and haven’t for a long time, but I’m assuming they compensate most stuff for you anyway.
If you’re shooting outdoors, avoid doing it around mid-day where the sun is at its height. This is because you’ll get unflattering shadows, or you’ll wash out people’s faces. You could keep adjusting settings and carry a reflector around with you but I prefer to just have my camera and one lens with me when I’m doing shoots.
Shade is usually good, and the light is usually more diffused I find, which gives softer shadows, but still enough to give definition to the face. I like using shadows, angles and depth of field to help make the person look more 3D in a photograph.
I don’t talk about settings much because I’m really just an amateur at all this and I’ve had no training, google can tell you everything you need to know for that, I’m more interested in the artistic/composition side.

So how do you make convention photos stand out?

I plan on making blogs about various aspects of photography including posing and angles in more detail later on. But things such as composition, how you place everything within your frame, will make a difference. Many convention photos are straight on standard photos, which is fine because it gets the whole costume in, but I like working dynamically with poses and angles. So just think about what pose someone is doing and how your photography can best capture the….essence of that pose (couldn’t think of a better word haha). I’ll talk more about that in another blog.
If they’re comfortable, maybe suggest some cool poses too. And there’s always Photoshop. There seems to be a bit of a divide between people who do and don’t use Photoshop. I do use it, but mostly for simple stuff such as lighting, contrast, maybe removing a piece of rubbish I didn’t notice in the background, adding a vignette. I don’t change how a person looks, I don’t make people slimmer and I don’t have the skills to do much more than what I do haha.

Basically, just try and take photos differently from what you’ve seen done before, and take a photo that not just you, but the cosplayer will like too (i.e. flattering and tasteful).

I don’t know if that was much help but if you have any questions pop them in the comments!

Hello all!

It’s Kimberley from A Shot in the Dark here J
As most of you know I’m fresh back from Alcon, which was loads of fun, mostly for the people we met. I love going to conventions to meet new cosplayers and work with new people, sometimes leading to full shoots with people outside conventions.

Leading up to the con I knew I would be doing a panel along with the ever elegant Lady Fancy Pants, as well as having a hallway table with her. Which mostly proved hilarious.

Shortly before the convention I noticed that our panel had been put down as half an hour instead of the hour we had written the panel for. I sent an email asking if this was a typo or mistake and was told that was all they could allocate to us. At this point it was too late for us to go through the whole presentation and cut it down to half an hour after we’d already written so we figured we’d see how it went on the day!
A couple of days before the convention the final timetable came out and they had renamed our panel from ‘Cosplay Photography and Modelling’ to ‘Cosplay Posing 101’. We were understandably quite upset about this because that was not at all what the panel was about, and the name now sounded very…childish. I can only assume it was renamed because there was not space on the timetable, but if asked I could have provided a more suitable name.

Well, moaning aside, we arrived to our hotel late Thursday night so missed the first day. On the Friday we wandered around, looking at the cosplays and getting to know where things were. I took some photos but many cosplayers were indoors and I don’t enjoy taking photos with so many people in the background! So I must admit this convention I didn’t take many. We did notice some dealers had set up their stalls on the Friday, we weren’t aware you could do this and may have done so ourselves if we’d known, but I don’t think it impacted that much.
On the Saturday we came in early to set up our table. I had bought plenty of things to sell as well as chat about photography, as had The Lady.

We had our panel at 4pm and had many more people than we expected for such a niche panel! After getting through 3 slides we were given our five minute warning from our friend, much to our horror! So we sped through the rest and managed to squeeze all the slides in and only went slightly over our time.  After the panel, and through the rest of the con, we had so many people come to our table and give us lovely feedback, a lot of it was that they wished it had been longer, but everyone said they had learnt a lot! That made me both happy and sad because I wished I could have said all the things I wanted to say and elaborate on. But I’m so happy it was well received and so many people came and asked me and LFP more questions! Special mention to the guy who listened to me talk about DSLR’s for a ridiculous amount of time, and still asked questions! <3

We got talking to so many amazing people who came by to our table and that was probably my highlight of the convention. I’d really love to hear from people who spoke to us at the convention and whether there are any more questions we can answer!

In terms of photography, I didn’t really do much over the weekend as our table proved more popular than I thought, and I wanted to be available for any questions. The sun was very bright through the weekend too, which made things harder! There weren’t any locations which appealed to me too and that can make me not want to take photographs as I probably wouldn’t have been very happy with them. It’s helped me realise I’ve become a very picky photographer haha! It’s also helped me realise conventions don’t much suit my photography style.

All in all it won’t stop me taking photos at conventions, I just much prefer full shoots with people! It helps me get to know the person a little better and feel more comfortable asking for more poses, which often results in better photos.

So here's a few photos I took at Alcon :) 

 These first two were taken of the same cosplayer who I have currently misplaced the business card of, which is rubbish of me, but I WILL find it!
As soon as I saw her I HAD to have a picture of her, loving Watchmen as I do. She turned out to be incredibly photogenic, which I didn't doubt anyway haha. I have a few more of her but this one in particular I took in quite a dark area and had to lighten in photoshop but it was worth it!
She mentioned that the next day she would be doing a Steampunk white rabbit, and having wanted to get a tattoo of the white rabbit myself I said if she was interested in a shoot the next day she could pop by my table, which she did!
I really wanted to try and get more full length shots as well as close ups (which is kinda my thing) so this is one of the ones I took. I liked this area because the colours matched her outfit quite well and the stairs allowed for a dynamic stance.

These two were of two cosplayers from the Arkham Asylum group which I took photos with and were happy to do a couple more after. For Poison Ivy I figured grass would be a good place, there weren't any decent places with flowers or woodland other than this grass area so I figure, work with what you've got and location is important to me! For Penguin, it's such a creepy character already and the make-up was done really well I wanted to have a close up shot and have it fill the frame so you aren't distracted by anything other than the look. 

 With Lady Fancy pants I did a quick shoot because a) I didn't have many location shots with her, b) I wanted to try out some more full length stuff and c) because she's super photogenic tbh. It was a lovely casual Ariel theme and the colours were always going to photograph well. It was good for me to work with someone I knew to try more full length stuff. Here's a case of getting to know someone well enough to then ask them to 'GET ON THE FLOOR! DO IT NOW!' or something. It had also been a while since we'd done pictures. I also got a shot of her smiling, which she hates, so I hope she likes it haha.

This lady I met the day before in cosplay and didn't even recognise it was the same person I'd done a shoot with! :O So that was pretty cool. I also love Phoenix like crazy, so wanted to get a cool shot with plenty of depth and a trademark pose. She looked so amazing, I'd have loved to work with her more. 

 Me and LFP called this cosplayer over because omg her wig and cosplay and bodypaint were all amazing! We ended up chatting with her for about an hour surely and she was SO NICE! LOOK AT THE WIG, it was truly stunning, so much so I will be bugging her about doing a commission. The background here is rubbish, ignore it, I failed, but she looks amazing!