Chun Li at Quarry Ruins

On November 19^th, well over a month ago now, I did an on-location photo session with Lady Cels at Seneca Mill & Quarry Ruins. I picked this location, because I thought it would be perfect for her Chun Li cosplay. Due to the location, this was a minimal equipment session; it is also why I chose to bring an assistant. 

For this session I used:

Photography Equipment

Cannon 80D Transmitter/Trigger 1 speed lights Painters Pole Assistant

The set up

There was no big set up for this session, since the location itself was the set. My set up included attaching a speed light to a painter’s pole and walking out to the site.

Camera Settings

For this session I used ISO 100, due to the brightness of the location.  I split my apertures equally between F5.6 and F8 depending on if I was trying to blur the background or not.  The background could be very busy, due to all the trees, shrubs, and vines.  My shutter speed varied from 1/40s to 1/400s based on the lighting conditions, with the most common speed being 1/160s.  My focal length ranged from 18mm to 100mm with most of the images being taken at 28mm.   

The Photos

For this session I moved between the two main areas of the site, which consisted of a section with stone painted white with graffiti and a section with dark red stone with graffiti. Both sections had a basic Street Fighter vibe, even though this location was in the middle of the woods.  However, I felt the section painted white, just worked better overall with the colors of the cosplay.

For this first photo I wanted to capture that feeling at the beginning of video games where they have the characters up on a podium and spinning around and you pick your character.  I had Lady Cels get up on one of the rocks in the corner, and used sunlight coming in from the right to light one side, then a flash raised up and to the left to highlight her face.  In post processing I balanced the exposure and got rid of a few hot spots, then did a little dodge and burn work.  I also went in and smoothed out a few wrinkles in the cosplay.  (Note:  I do NOT reduce the size of people I work with, the most I ever do is smooth any weird bumps or lumps in the fabric.) I then cropped the image and added a slight vignette.

 

Aperture F5.6, Shutter 1/100s, Focal Length 50mm

This second photo was taken in the red stone section of the site.  The speed light is directly in front of me at about knee level point up with a wide spread. Now usually you don’t want to light someone from below, because it can be very unflattering.  In this case the lighting works with the character.  The reason the lighting worked was because it was not pointing straight up, but at an angle and there was some light coming down from the sun. In post I balanced the image, darkened the background foliage, and reduced a few hot spots.  I did a little dodge and burn, cropped the image then added a medium vignette.

Aperture F8, Shutter 1/160s, Focal Length 24mm

Overall, I felt the session went well and we were able to capture some great photos. Check out Lady Cels’s Instagram page to see more images from the session as well as some of her other amazing cosplays.

Credits:

Cosplay: Lady Cels (Instagram: @ladycels)