Cosplay Photoshoot: Barbecue Leona

 On April 3, I did my last Ohio cosplay shoot, before moving back to Washington DC, with Maker Fishmeal.  We shot her Barbecue Leona from League of Legends. Now the question became where do you photograph a character who has a giant hotdog on a stick as their weapon and a grill for a shield, well at a park on playground equipment.  

I held this session at the Fairborn Community park because they had playground equipment and pavilions with picnic tables and grills, which work for the character theme. Unfortunately it was very windy that day, which was playing havoc with the cosplayers hat and turning the shield and hotdog into sails. Thankfully, Maker Fishmeal brought her handler with her, to help manage the props.  I was working without an assistant that day, thus traveling light. For this shoot I used my large portable light stand that can go about 8 feet and can handle uneven surfaces. A speedlight, trigger, and of course my Canon 80D with my 18-200mm lens.  

Overall this shoot was a lot of fun, even if the wind made it a struggle at times.  I feel I got several good photos in a variety of locations. My favorite photo we took at the end of the session, where I put Maker Fishmeal up on the top of a playground jungle gym “turret” and asked her to look proud and as though she is surveying the land after winning the hotdog wars.  I think it portrays the characters strength while still being slightly silly.  I just did basic edits on the image and got rid of a few stray hairs. Added a slight vignette and  called it done.  I love when I don’t have to do a bunch of complicated edits, and the image is basically perfect out of camera. 

ISO 100, Aperture F10, Shutter 1/200s, Focal Length 18mm

My second favorite image from the session is her charging across the picnic tables in one of the pavilions.  It just makes sense this character would be charging across the tables to save someone from some kind of barbecue disaster.  To get this shot I obviously had her look like she was charging, and placed the flash off to my right at about 30 degrees, raised up and pointed towards the model. The bright sun provided some fill while we were under the pavilion.  I just did some basic edits and crops, while removing some distracting elements such as leftover streamers from the rafters and downed branches on the grass to finish the photo.

ISO 100, Aperture F8, Shutter 1/125s, Focal Length 20mm

Then finally if you are working with a character that wields a giant hotdog on a stick, I think it is almost mandatory to get a picture of the cosplayer grilling that giant hotdog over one of the park grills. While it was very bright and sunny that day, I did use a flash to fill and so I could stop down to not blow out the sky.  In this case the flash was to my right, and the sun is coming from behind the model.  I brightened the model’s face a bit in post and cleaned up a few sticks and distractions on the ground during post.  Overall the image came out well direct from the camera, and I just like the overall feel of the image. 

ISO 100, Aperture F11, Shutter 1/250s, Focal Length 18mm

This was a very fun shoot, and I’m going to miss being able to work with Maker Fishmeal on a regular basis.  She does amazing foam work from props to armors.  If you want to learn about foam smithing follow her Instagram (@makerfishmeal) posts where she provides several short tutorials on everything to pattern making, equipment/tool suggestions, and WIPs of her current projects. You can see all the great images from this session here "Leona (Barbecue version)"