The Munchkin's Notebook

The year of 2017 was an interesting year for me, I felt as though I did more photoshoots, however only ended up editing about 642 more photos then last year. In 2016 I edited 5,851 images and in 2017 I edited 6,475 images, noting this is the number of photos listed in Lightroom, not the actual number of photos I took over the course of the year. This year I was only able to do the Katsucon convention, because they moved Anime USA to December, which is a hard month due to the holidays. However, I did do more cosplay work outside of conventions due to meet-up events with the DC Cosplayer and Photographer* group and more individual shoots.  I also did three non-cosplay conceptual/fine art portrait shoots this year, of which two photos from those shoots were shown in an art gallery in Alexandria, VA.  I also worked in some landscape and travel photography, during my vacation to Scotland and Acadia National Park, in both cases I was not overly happy with my results. So now let’s ...

On November 11, the  D.C. Cosplayers and Photographer group  met at the National Portrait Gallery for their monthly meet-up.  The National Portrait Gallery is wonderful place to shoot, especially on the third floor which has what is considered Greek revival architecture. Usually the meet ups are on Sundays, which means there are fewer people at the gallery.  However, this recent meet up was held on a Saturday, which meant there were more people at the gallery, additionally the gallery changed a few of the photography flash rules in a few of the area that used to allow flash.  With the additional people and the photography changes it was a bit more challenging to shoot in some of the areas.  For this shoot, I used my Canon 70D, my trusty 18-200mm lens, one 430 EX–III RT, one 600 EX-RT speed light, a Westcott Rapid Box 20-inch Octa Mini light modifier (mounted on metal pin).  My husband, who is my trusty assistant, held the 600 EX-RT flash with the...

On October 22 I went to Lake Accotink Park for the Halloween themed DCCosplay  meet up.  Lake Accotink Park is a nice area, which has a lake, a wooded area and a few concrete areas.  The location was good for a Halloween shoot, set for the middle of the day since the forest area provided shade and the concrete areas worked well for a more urban setting.  For this shoot, I used my Canon 70D, my trusty 18 -200mm lens, radio trigger, and two 430 EX –IIIRT speed light.  My husband, who is my trusty assistant, held a painter’s pole which we mounted one of the speed light to the top of without an umbrella.  I did not use an umbrella so I could have a possibility to combat the sun.  I mounted the second flash on a standard light stand without an umbrella and used it for occasional fill or back lighting. I took 300 photos, edited 232 photos, and posted 139 fully edited shots.  For all the shots, I was at an ISO of 200 using an aperture of between F7....

Stop along the Park Loop Road ISO 400, Focal Length 20mm, Aperture F8, Shutter 1/400s Last weekend my husband and I went up to Acadia NationalPark, in Maine, for a long weekend to celebrate our anniversary. We chose Acadia because we thought there would be some fall colors and really why not go to Maine in the fall.   The park is nice and has several pull-offs along the park loop road, however to really see the park you need to rent a bike (which the park does not do) so you can access more of the park via the carriage roads. If you don’t utilize the carriage roads, you can do the park loop road in about a day.  We did not rent a bike so only accessed trails via the parking lot trail heads.  We did a few hikes, one long hike around Jordan Pond, as short one down to Boulder Beach, and medium length one up to see Bubble Rock.  The hike around Jordan Pond was relatively easy except for the part where you had to crawl across some large rocks.  After t...

A while back, I posted on my Facebook page a link to a video covering 40 years of Gothic Style , which inspired on of my favorite cosplayers, Nerdenheim Jen , to make a Gothic Lolita outfit.  So last weekend, we went and shot it down at Scott’s Run .  You might not think being out in the middle of the woods is a place to do a Gothic Lolita shoot; abandoned mansion comes to mind. However, the use of an abandoned fireplace and props brought the shoot to life.   For this shoot I used a Canon 70D, an 18-200mm lens, one 430 EX-IIIRT speed light, one 600 EX-RT speed light, radio trigger, lightstand,  painter’s pole with baby pin adapter, umbrella, foam skull, candelabra, and a tea-towel for the model to sit on.  My husband came with me on this shoot to act as my assistant.  His job was to hold the painter’s pole with a speedlight attached, so I could get the light angles correct for the three locations we shot and not worry about having to balance two light...

Bonus image: Focal length 18mm, Apeture F7.1, Shutter 1/200s I went up to Ohio a few weekends ago for my class reunion, and figured while I was up there I would do a photoshoot at a local little waterfall called Blue Hen Falls.  The original concept for this shoot I had in my head was based on forest/water nymph; however, I ended up tweaking my vision slightly based on some photos of Charlize Therontaken by Annie Leibovitz in 2011 for Vogue as well as some photos on Pinterest.   For this shoot, I knew I needed a flowy super long dress, and what fit the bill was a white parachute dress, which I found at Enception Dress Rentals .  The dress is made out of a parachute that is about 25 feet in diameter, which is a lot of fabric, and had a shipping weight was 8 lbs.  Now for the shoot I did bustle the front part of the dress.  I bustled it because the path leading down to the waterfall is rocky and steep, so I wanted my model to be able to walk safel...

On July 22, I had four photo sessions out at the McKee Besher sunflower fields in Maryland with the shoot starting at 08:00AM and going until 12:00 PM.  I determined four hours of shooting in a very sunny field with very little shade makes for a very long morning. For this shoot, I had an interesting equipment list, which included the following:        Canon 70D,         18 -200mm lens,         2x 430 EX –IIIRT speed light         Light stand         Reflector that doubled as a diffuser         Ladder         Bug spray         Bottled water         Hat         Flexible cold pack     And an assistant (my husband). You may be asking why I had a ladder with me, this was so I could get above the sunflowers and shoot down onto the model.  Basically, th...

On July 23 rd , winter was supposed to be coming, however it was extremely hot outside; thankfully I was inside the NationalBuilding Museum for a DC Cosplay meet up.  The theme for this meet up was the Game of Thrones since the season recently started.  The National Building Museum is an excellent location for the theme due to large Corinthian columns inside the museum and its overall classical architecture.  The other item that made this shoot interesting was the fact; we had access to the Hive exhibit an hour before it opened to the public.  The Hive is part of the museums summer art display, and is a bunch of large cardboard tubes painted silver and pink stacked on top of each other. While the hive was interesting, I did not feel it added to the theme and preferred to use the museum architecture for the backgrounds of the photos. For this shoot, I used my Canon 70D, my trusty 18 -200mm lens, a 430 EX –IIIRT speed light, with a lumapro bounce.  The mus...