Skip to main content

September Cosplay Meet-up

On September 27th, the first meet up of the DCC was held since the COVID pandemic started.  This group meet-up was limited to 10 people (5-cosplayers and 5-photographers) and was held in an Ohio county that was not red. COVID per cautions were taken to include having the event outdoors, keeping 6-feet apart, photographers wearing masks at all times, cosplayers wearing masks when not being photographed, and keeping session times to 15-minutes per photographer. All participants in the event understood their risks, and choose to participate in the meet-up.  

For this shoot I used:

  • Canon 80D
  • 2 Speed lights
  • Light stand

I shot 199 frames at ISO 100.  My aperture varied between F8 and F9. My shutter speed was on the high end, so I was in high speed sync for a good portion of the shoot.  My shutter speeds ranged from 1/125s to 1/400s, with a majority of the frames being shot at 1/200s.  My focal length varied from 18mm to 70mm, with most of the frames being shot at 18mm.  Of the 199 frames I edited 113 frames, and released 42 final images, which averaged about 8 final images per cosplayer.

My favorite image from the meet-up is of  ‘ashleynicole-draws’ as Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII.  The reason I like this image so much because I feel it aligns with the character and could be a scene from the game.  The sky works beautifully with the tall grass and the colors of the characters outfit pop against the two.  When shooting this I adjusted for the sky and had a flash my right to light the model.   Then when editing the image, I enhanced the sky slightly with a selective gradient, and added a touch more light to the model’s face. I fished up the image by adding a vignette to the image.  (ISO 100, Focal Length 18mm, Aperture F9, Shutter 1/200s)

(ISO 100, Focal Length 18mm, Aperture F9, Shutter 1/200s)

You can see all the final images from the meet-up here: Quarry - September

It was good that we had the meet up, while significantly smaller than the regular DCC meet-ups,  to have a little bit of normalcy in these interesting times. 

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