Photoshop Skills

Today I spent some time working on my Photoshop skills, by removing annoying backgrounds from photos and creating collages. I used the photos I took at Katsucon for this exercise since, I thought I took some nice portraits but the backgrounds were distracting and full of random people. I created my own backgrounds for most of these pictures except in a few cases. You can see some of the final results here: http://munchkinphotos.smugmug.com/Portraits/Cosplay.

I also worked on creating some collages. I made two for my Munchkin Photos Facebook page cover photos. The most difficult part of the process was identifying which pictures to use and showcase the variety of my work. I also made one of compilation of images depicting the same lady cosplayer showing different expressions. This was a simpler collage since it was all the same person, though the sizing of the images was a bit challenging. Overall I think the collages came out ok. I now plan on updating the collage for my Facebook cover photo on quarterly or seasonal basis to keep it fresh.

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Cobwebs Everywhere

On October 7 th , I did a studio spooky session with Coralinx Cosplay . The central theme of this shoot was a pretty goth girl who had a fondness for spiders and decorating with cobwebs, making it a perfect Halloween session. Note: Cobwebs are defined as abandoned or old spiderwebs that have collected dust. Many cobwebs are the result of comb-footed spider (i.e., black widows) that make irregularly shaped webs. Spiderwebs are active structures built to catch prey. (Source: Western Exterminator Company) For these sessions, I used: Photography Equipment Other Equipment Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Westcott FJ400 2 Phottix Strobes 2 strip boxes 2 rectangular soft boxes 2 c-stands 3 light stands Backdrop stand Black seamless 2 Westcott silicon gels Tether cable Laptop Laptop holder Sandbags A-clamps Spyder Color checker Fake cobwebs Table ...

Katsucon 2025 Wrap - Up

Katsucon 2025 didn’t seem as crowded as 2024, but I still wasn’t feeling it. Katsucon will always have a special place in my heart, but I think I’m just bored with it, from a creative perspective. While I still love working with cosplayers the location itself no longer excites me and I’m tired of fighting the crowds. If I return to Katsucon 2026 I think I’ll just set up a studio in my room and do studio sessions. I can be a lot more creative with a studio session, and I get to use all my lights. So now let's talk about photography. For Katsucon I was shooting with my Canon R6 with an 24-105 Canon RF lens, and I had a fisheye lens on me as well, but we will discuss that later. I had two speedlights, one on camera which acted as a trigger 90-percent of the time and one on a light stand which my husband would hold during shoots. This year I booked 11 cosplay sessions and shot 869 frames. I shot a range of ISOs from ISO 100 to ISO 800...

2025 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2026

This year was a bit interesting especially since during the day, I’m a government employee, which resulted in a lot of stress and a 42-day furlough. I didn’t attend as many cosplay events with the D.C Cosplay group, now Costume and Camera, as I normally would have, due to schedule conflicts. However, I traveled up to Poughkeepsie, New York for two photo events, one of which I was a featured photographer. I attended two conventions, one of which didn’t turn out as expected and the other just confirmed my decision to take a break from it. Though happily I did a lot of studio work this year, which I enjoyed. But on the other hand, I lost my dear “studio supervisor”, my dog Teddy. He liked to great clients and then “supervise” while lying/sleeping in his bed. I also started to work on the business side of my photography work, by investing in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) site to manage bookings, schedules, and payments. No more trying to juggle...

The Munchkin's Notebook

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