Skip to main content

Horror at Noon

Two weeks ago, I participated in the DC Cosplay Photo Shoots Group meet up at Pierce Mill Park in DC.  The theme for this cosplay meet up was horror; however, the meet up was in the middle of the day on a bright sunshiny day.  Even though the sky was not conducive to getting those dark, creepy shots; however, the cosplayers were great and I made the location work for me to get the shots.

For this shoot, I was using a Cannon 70D with an 18-200 mm lens, and a 430EX II speedlight mounted on a painters poll triggered with a Young Nu radio trigger.  (Thank you to my husband who acted as my voice activated light stand) I did not use an umbrella, because I wanted hard, harsh light to get that creepy horror look.  Because it was such a bright day,  was using ISO 100,  and stopped down my aperture to F10, used varied my shutter speed based on the amount of light, and had my flash in high-speed sync mode.  I did vary my flash power, but was mostly ran it at ½ to ¼ power.

I had several favorite shots, but I’ll only discuss three. The first is the Jeckel/Hyde photo.  This photo was shot in the shade, at ISO 100, aperture F10, shutter 1/60s, focal length 20.00mm.  The flash was pointed up from the ground to the left of the model and was at ½ power.  On the original picture, I did basic edits to include adjusting colorcast, contrast, sharpness, correct camera distortion, and cropping.  I then used a few presets to darken the photo and added a square vignette.

Original
Final Jeckel/Hyde
Cosplayer: Lady O Cosplay

This photo I absolutely love, because it looks like a high fashion shot.  While the photo does not convey creepy horror, I feel it conveys classic gothic horror and high society.  While the cosplayer was doing a spider with fangs, I feel she is embodying a modern vampire and not one of those silly sparkly ones.  This photo was shot in the shade, at ISO 400, aperture F16, shutter 1/100s, focal length 20.00mm.  The flash was pointed down to the left of the model and was at ½ power.  On the original picture, I did basic edits to include adjusting colorcast, contrast, sharpness, correct camera distortion, and cropping.  I then used a few presets to darken the photo and added a square vignette. I also did a black and white version of the photo, but find I like the color one better.

Original
Final Image of Sophisticated Spider
Black & White Version

Finally, it would not be a cosplay horror shoot if there wasn’t someone cosplaying from Silent Hill. This photo was shot in the shade, at ISO 400, aperture F10, shutter 1/250s, focal length 20.00mm.  The flash was pointed up and to the left of the model and was at ½ power.  On the original picture, I did basic edits to include adjusting colorcast, contrast, sharpness, correct camera distortion, and cropping.  I then used a few presets to darken the photo and added a square vignette.  I also tried to give this photo a bit more of red/brown cast similar to what is seen in the video game.  For those who think there should be more blood to be Silent Hill, you can’t splatter fake blood around a park.

Original
Final Image of Nurse from Silent Hill
Cosplayer: DVS Cosplay

 Overall, I’m happy with how these photos came out.  I’m happy I was able to capture the horror theme even though the setting was the complete opposite with a clear blue sky and bright sunshine.  You can see all the photos from the shoot here.  You can also follow my work on Facebook  here. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2024 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2025

This year felt a little off for me; I think it was because I was in a mental recovery mode.  I finished my graduate program in June and immediately went on a week-long vacation to Palm Springs.  I do not recommend Palm Springs in June; way too hot.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but the graduate program mentally and physically exhausted me, which I think showed in some of my creative work.  But being able to work with great people like Natalie Hanrion , Coralinx Cosplay , and Anastasia B kept me motivated.  While I didn’t attend as many Cosplay Photo Shoot events as in the past, the ones I did attend were helpful in keeping the creativity flowing.  I also took some time this year to reflect on a few things and will be making some changes for 2025. In 2024, I shot 6241 frames, which is a 30-percent decrease from last year.  I edited 3187 frames, which is a 40-percent decrease from 2023.  I think this year, I started focusing on being very min...
Post a Comment
Read more

First Session of 2025 - Queen of Hearts

My first official shoot of 2025 was with Lady Cels on January 4 th , to shoot her Queen of Hearts cosplay based off the NoFlutter Design. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 1 FJ400 Westcott Strobes 60-inch umbrella with sock 1 rectangular soft box 1 bell reflector grids 2 C-stands 1 Platypod Sandbags Backdrop stand Savage Primary Red Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps   Gold ring wedding altar pieces Playing cards Flowers Styrofoam block Scotch tape     The set up The inspiration for this shoot was obviously the Queen of Hearts, but I took my set design cues from the original NoFlutter drawing.  I wanted to create something similar to the swirls used in the background of the image, so I started looking at wrought iron garden fences and ended up on gold we...
Post a Comment
Read more

Snow Session

On January 9 th , Washu Cosplay and I did a slightly impromptu snow session at Great Falls National Park.   This was possible because of the passing of the Explorers Act which allows photography in a National Park with a model without a permit.   Before you get too excited, the law limits equipment and the size of the party; you are allowed your camera, tripod, and handheld lighting equipment, and the group can be no more than 5 people, which includes the photographer, model, and assistants.   So, there are no big lighting setups or big crews; for big shots, you will still need a permit.      For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 1 speed light 1 light stand     The set up For this shoot I was mixing flash and natural light.  In most cases, my model was partially backlighted by the sun.  Thus, I u...
Post a Comment
Read more