A cycle in cosplay photography

January 30th, 2012

I’ve been semi-inspired to post this for a while now. I know some of you have been satisfied and some have not (perfectly okay!). you fail in life sometimes and that’s how you learn. just apologize and move on. but I wanted to share how I do things so maybe everyone will have a better idea of how I shoot and such.

*I know there are a lot of cosplay photographers, but this is rather how I do things. so please don’t generalize.

Step 1: advertising/setting up
this typically happens 1.5 months before the con and continues til 2-3 days before. Basically I take a combination of public requests and also cosplayers I want to work with. There’s a lot of back and forth communication, social networking activity, and such. Things about location and time and special requests. Sometimes people re-schedule and you have to shuffle people around or let them go. I don’t make it a personal habit of re-scheduling a shoot unless I have a personal emergency or need to squeeze in lunchtime – I am there to shoot at a con 95% of the time.

Step 2: packing
this happens the week day before the shoot. checking all the equipment. and checking which backback/suitcase setups I want to go with. doesn’t seem like it would take long, but I would say it’s about 2 hours for me. It’s a somewhat stressful thing as the equipment is 4 digits worth + if you know what I mean.

Step 3:transportation
I usually drive there, and depending on the con, stay or park valet so 2 hours before I shoot I pack. then I have to do an quick equipment check before I leave the car.

Step 4: shoot shoot shoot!
so I try to get there earlier by an hour so I can scout around. After that I start shooting by calling/texting them and letting them know I have arrived. Sometimes people show up. sometimes people don’t. if they don’t I walk around and shoot someone else after 15 minutes by staying around in the general area if they call. I usually take a 30 minute lunch (or less) and am shooting 95% of the time. I spend 5% talking to con friends and some hall shots. this is usuall 6-10 hours a day depending on how many days I am going.
and if you think we don’t suffer physically we do. our backpacks are heavily. our cameras make our wrists scream. setting up over and over makes us tired. and all those shots where we’re bending over to get the perfect shots works your abs to no end. just how I imagine you’re sweating to death in your giant mascot plushie or dying in that miniskirt and 6 inch heels with full makeup and fake eyelashes. we all suffer =)

Step 5: editing – lightroom
I accumulate 50 shots per shoot on average. I usually average 400 shots a day (varies if there are action shots, then there’s a LOT more). after that I put the shots through a first round of culling (trimming out similar angles/over or under exposed/bad poses expresions). The second round is basically I have 2 good shots, but which one is BETTER? I delete the other one. After that I apply a round of global general edits to all photos, followed by specific style edits (b/w, desaturation, etc). this has been known to take up 8 hours or so. About 15-30% of the shots survive this process.

step 6: photoshop magic
this is where I go and remove dark circles, large pores, background people, or any kind of major flaws for a select few pictures. there’s also a few special shots I want to revisit to enhance with creative edits averaging 5-10 min per picture this takes up to 2-3 hours.

for the special shoots I send out the edits for approval to the shoots which it was a 50/50 collaboration for approval. upon approval and re-edits if needed I post those at a later date. there’s a little bit of back and forth here but that’s natural.

step 7: posting/social networking
so I now produce full and web size JPGs. I upload the mass of them to my website. then select ones go on facebook/deviant. links are then posted on my facebook/twitter/website. this is about an hour of work

step 8: backing it up
I power up my 5 hard drives. yes 5 externals. and put the JPG and RAWs on them. I file away my model releases. may take up to another hour.

step 9: double checking
at this point I check on my sites everything is working because I am a perfectionist.

At this point I am exhausted and go to sleep or play a videogame to relax because odds I drove to a con, shot for 6 hours, came back and spent 5-6 hours finishing it. and I probably haven’t had dinner yet.

so yep that is what goes into my process. A lot of effort and love into my photos =)

thank you for your SOPA support!

January 18th, 2012

Hi everyone,

thanks everyone so much for bearing with me and hopefully being educated on SOPA! as a web developer my passion is for web (aside from cosplay photography) and I felt I had to do something.

Hope to see everyone at AOD!

Changes

January 12th, 2012

As the title denotates, there’s a few changes.

As for cons, fanime is planned every year for sat and sun(depending on situation). AOD and other local cons are a possiblity depending on time. AOD this year is a go.
I’d love to go to the other cons but they are all in LA and I have better use for 3-4 vacation days (like actual places… cough china cough)

to be honest, cons aren’t as fun as they used to be – maybe it’s because I’m getting “older” or the people I used to work and collaborate we don’t do much work together anymore. but in any case, I’m having a lot of fun working with the new cosplayers I’ve met last year!

that being said, I just feel life should follow a natural progressing, and cons are pretty winding down for me unless there’s incentive like a good friend coming along.

I’m still really invested in private photoshoots as that’s what winter wish photography is all about.

thanks for reading.

new gallery system!

January 5th, 2012

Hi guys!

I never mentioned what a pain in the ASS my old gallery was to maintain. sure it looked good. but hell it crashed all the time. I had to reset my password all the time. it was just a nightmare to manage. I saw gallery 3 and my webhost FINALLY got php5 and apache2 so I could actually run it.

I upgraded my gallery system (about time!) to gallery3 from gallery2.
I didn’t import over all the old pictures but left the old gallery up here: http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php

here is the new link:

http://winterwish.net/gallery3/

now you are able to comment on images and I will be adding more features going forward such as being able to post on facebook or tweeting!
Let me know if there are any glitches and please post any feedback you have!

here’s to 2012!

December 31st, 2011

2011 was a pretty good year looking back photography-wise for me.

I broke away from the setting up all the speedlights and whatnot, and just more concentrated on making it work with what was there.
because at the end of the day, it’s all about making them happy, and you happy.

and not that you COULD have put a backlight and kicker and slightly brought out the background or something.

this is not a job, this is fun. and yes there are times when it should be technical but sometimes you should just shoot and have fun =)

looking forward to having a super creative 2012!! hope all of you make 2012 your best year yet!

not what you want, but what you need

December 16th, 2011

been aware I’ve been fairly quiet on any kind of front or posting new content.

in any case, I think full disclosure can’t hurt anyone. I’m feeling a bit burned out.

Burned out in the sense I’ve
- burned or have been burned on a few personal bridges in the past 2 years
- the cosplayers I used to work with either burned bridges by accident or they burned the bridges or found other favorite photographers (which is fine with me)
- although it hasn’t been a struggle to just maintain basics of job, social connections, and networking – it hasn’t been successful as much as I thought this year
- I am honestly somewhat tired with certain aspects of photography – flakers, haters, copies. most just flakers and shady models to be honest. the other part being I basically sunk 2-3 years to get a basic level and haven’t found a business model/client base on the non-cosplay front so far.
- I’m not antisocial, but I personally hate drama and being dragged into things and I’m pulling back a little because I’ve found myself in some unsavory situations this and last year

so right now I am resetting for 2012 with videogames because I figure I might as well enjoy myself as this year is basicaly done and there’s nothing I can do about it.

because I think sometimes you’re your own real-life batman. There’s moments where I feel I’m not what I want to be, but I’m what I need to be a good person and to back up my friends. because I’m not built for the public face. I’m a silent guardian of justice whenever I can help, and back up my friends whenever I can.

have a photoshop pic. and happy holidays to all! I’ll be out of the country/busy til new years so no stories or whatnot for me =)

Fanime 2011 Wrap-Up

May 30th, 2011

Fanime 2011 was awesome!

Compared to 2010, it had way less personal/room drama.
Compared to 2009, it had way less room drama.
Compared to all the previous years, I had a record number of 20+ shoots and was running around a lot. I must admit it was stressful at times and I shot to 30min before my ride came to pick me up on my last day there =)

Coming into the con I had an idea of what the “wow” picture would be, but I never thought it was going to be a rushed 20 minute with my good friend Lakari. bascially what happened was I had 20 minutes to shoot in the Saint Claire and I didn’t have time to set up lightstands so I had someone just hold a bare flash. I thought the shoot was going to be subpar. When I opened it in photoshop, the pictures were absolute AMAZING.

I refer to the below shot: http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=9075

Other that that, night shoots were bit difficult for me this year as things kept falling down and I had some difficulty with focusing and the more complicated equipment. but I tried to mix it up this year with ambient, one flash, multiple softbox/beauty dish and I got a variety of shoots and was never really bored really.

Thanks everyone for shooting with me and see you in 2011.

Now either you scrolled down or read this far(good for you!). here’s the links to the goodies =)

Best of the best:

http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=1732

Con Converage:

http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=584

Full Fanime 2011 shoots:

http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=8499

Increase your chances of getting a shoot with “pro cosplay photographers”

May 23rd, 2011

basically, just stand out from the crowd.

let me say I don’t play favorites with friends or certain archetypes. I don’t JUST shoot hot girls, or big mecha, or mascots, or anything other category you wanna throw in there.

I look for something that stands out. There’s some people I shoot with that have a great smile and energy. There’s some people I shoot with that have really sexy figures and can pull off good edgy poses. There’s people I shoot with that have huge mecha costumes/giant props and are highly skilled in prop making. There’s people will natural charisma and just fun to work with no matter how long it takes to get the shot. I can go on and on. I am an ex-cosplayer so I only picked cosplays that would work with my personality or body type or whatnot – I didn’t pull off what I could not. and that is what doesn’t get you a shoot with me at least. Pulling off something that doesn’t show your best features, whatever they are.

It helps to really have an portfolio or dA or something so we photographers can gauge your experience and who you’ve worked with and such. a facebook page/website helps as well. It shows us you’re serious to create something awesome.

If you really want “examples”, feel free to visit my best of the best album and you can see what I shoot.

but I hope that explains better because I am not in high school and I cannot test shoot everyone. I have limited time in my life and I make time for this hobby so I’d better get some good stuff out of it.

Thanks for reading and once again, nothing personal.

Wondercon 2011 Con report

April 3rd, 2011

I had the honor of covering Wondercon 2011.

In terms of size, it’s as big as Fanime or Anime Expo, and of course a preview to its big daddy Comic-con.

I had a few camera malfunctions, so I was not able to document as much as I wanted.
But at first glance, the dealer’s room is literally huge and crawling with tons of memorabilia. I stopped by Artist’s Alley and the artist were really nice and had lots of cool stuff for sale. Also stopped by the G4 booth as I am a big fan of Attack of the Show. Too bad Kevin wasn’t there, he’s hilarious!
Coverage link: http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=8146

In terms of the attendees in costume, there were many. Ranging from the intimidating Darth Vader and the 501 Stormtrooper squadorn to some incredibly cute minions from Pixar movies to superhero costumes like Batman/Superman/etc to the anime costumes such as Street Fighter/high school of the dead. And of course, coming from the recent movie Suckerpunch, quite a few of those and well done I must say! and being a giant fan of Battlestar Galatica and the Stargate series was happy to those represented as well.

I did a few private photoshoots and that link is below:

http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=8145

Al in all had a great time, met up with old friends, and geeked out =)

AOD shoots!

February 22nd, 2011

AOD 2011 was a blast this year. I initially thought I wasn’t going to get a lot of good shots, but in the end I think I’m pretty satisfied with what I have =)

Here are the gallery links below.

Best of the best (updated):

http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=1732

Con coverage & concert coverage:

http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=584

AOD private shoots:

http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=7710

It was nice meeting everyone and I hope to see everyone at Fanime! =)