Back on February 13th in honor of Katsucon, which was canceled, I held an in studio cosplay photoshoot day. While this was not a real substitute for a convention, it was still a great way to work with several different cosplayers, at a reduced stress level, no crowds of people, and a very controlled environment. Because the event went well, I will be holding another one again in the future. Normally at a convention I will work with anywhere from 8 to 10 cosplayers in a day, but on a studio shoot day I only worked with 5 cosplayers, which lent itself to a more relaxed and creative day.
I held my studio shoot day at Something Old - Dayton, one of my favorite studios in the Dayton area. I used their loft space due to its overall size, set up, and availability of furniture. I really liked the fake fireplace that they have set up since it worked well with basically all the cosplays I was shooting that day. Additionally, since this was a studio shoot I could bring a variety of equipment that I normally would not bring to a convention or group shoot. I brought two strobes on c-stands with square soft boxes, three speedlights on light stands, some umbrellas, and a couple grids. I also brought a couple additional props with me, which were a glass orb, a sword, a lantern, and a bottle. I also had my laptop and tether equipment, but decided against tethered shooting just because I was going to be moving around the space too much and the tether would just turn into a tripping hazard for me. I did use my standard Canon 80D with the 18-200mm lens, it really is my go to set up.
Now onto the amazing cosplayers and some of my favorite photos from the sessions. The first cosplayer I worked with that day was Rose Royce, who traveled from Mentor all the way down to Dayton to work with me. I take that as a very high complement. Rose Royce was fun to work with and we actually were able to do two different outfits for the same character, Bluma from Dragon Ball Z. I would never be able to do that in a convention setting. My personal favorite from the session is her as Bunny Suit Bluma posed on an ottoman. My inspiration for this was old Playboy Bunny poses and lighting. The second photo that we took right outside the studio by the old entrance to the second story. I loved her facial expressions and how she got into the character. This second image depicts her hunting for Dragon Balls, using the Dragon Ball detector. She made it out of a light up mirror, and to enhance its glow I added a fake glow in post post processing.
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| ISO 100, Aperture F5, Shutter, 1/250s, Focal Length 18mm |
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| ISO 100, Aperture F5, Shutter, 1/250s, Focal Length 18mm |
Now onto a cosplayer that I work with a lot, ButDragonsTho Cosplay, who was doing Gretel from SINoAlice. ButDragonsTho is always a great cosplayer to work with, and brings it everytime. When doing one-on-one cosplay sessions I usually research the character through a google image search to get an idea of posing, any main props, or looks. In this case Gretel carries a large lantern, I did not have a large lanter and neither did the cosplay, but I did have a small one which we used. Props make the image more exciting, help tell a story, and can help the cosplayer or a person in general pose more easily since they have something to interact with. Thus one of my favorite images is of her holding the lantern up. I added the glow from the lantern in post, and toned the image using the standard orange/teal split tone.
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| ISO 100, Aperture F5.6, Shutter, 1/200s, Focal Length 18mm |
The third cosplayer of the day was Kagaku Cosplay doing Vil Schoenheit from Twisted Wonderland. Kagaku Cosplay brought a lot of their own props, specifically the position bottles and a poison apple. The charter they are portraying is a villain based off of Snow White’s evil queen, so I went for more mischievous or evil looking poses. My personal favorite is the first image below which is a ¾ length image. It is a very simple image but I believe it portrays the overall essence of the character. The second image below involved all the potion bottles that they brought. To achieve this look, I had my two soft boxes providing the main light, but to add pop to the glassware, a gridded speed light was added to the side to just light the glassware on the table. When editing I made the image slightly darker, added a vignette, and toned the image slightly. Overall I think all the images from this session show the depth of the character.
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| ISO 100, Aperture F5, Shutter, 1/125s, Focal Length 60mm |
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| ISO 100, Aperture F6.3, Shutter, 1/160s, Focal Length 50mm |
The final cosplayer of the day was Fara Cosplay as Beidou from Genshin Impact. Fara Cosplay is always nice to work with, she is also very tall in three inch heels, compared to my tiny 5’2” self. She wanted to show off the details of this cosplay and the huge sword. The sword was big and I was glad the studio space had very tall ceilings. To show off the cosplay itself and the sword we did a few very basic full body poses, while still showing the strength and personality of the character. The one thing to remember when photographing cosplayers with swords, is to ensure they are not just showing you the edge of the sword, or it will just look like a line. The sword always needs to be tilted slightly to see a bit of the flat, so it has some shape and definition.
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| ISO 100, Aperture F6.3, Shutter, 1/250s, Focal Length 18mm |
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| ISO 100, Aperture F6.3, Shutter, 1/250s, Focal Length 20mm |
Overall cosplay studio day went really well. What I liked about the day was I didn’t have to run around to different locations across a convention center, to get interesting and diverse images. The studio set worked for a variety of cosplays and it could be easily rearranged to suit the cosplay character or mood. It was also nice to have my full light set up to work with, while I can work with just one light to create photos, having more than one opens up other possibilities. I will be hosting another cosplay studio day in the future.
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