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Cosplay Meet Up with Animals

On April 22, I attended the D.C. Cosplay Photo Shoots’ meet up at Burleigh Manor Animal Sanctuary and Eco Retreat in Ellicott City, MD.  The Federal-style manor house was built by Colonel Rezin Hammond in 1802 as well as several other out buildings.  The sanctuary provides unwanted, neglected and abused farm animals a home to live out the rest of their days. The animals are well cared for and guest of the manor can interact with the animals.

For these sessions I used:

  • Canon 80D
  • 1 Speed light
  • Small square soft box
  • Trigger
  • Light stand
  • 18-200mm lens

Camera Settings:

For this shoot we had access to all the outdoor areas, to include a few of the animal pens.  We also had access to the wine cellar, guest cottage, and pool area, which I did not use for my mini sessions.  For this event I shot at ISO 100 and ISO 200.  There was a big storm rolling in that day and the lighting conditions where slowly changing throughout the course of the event.  I also was jumping between shade and full sunlight.  My aperture was fairly evenly divided between F8 and F9. My shutter speed ranged from 1/60s to 1/250s with most shots being taken at 1/80s. My focal lengths ranged from 18mm to 60mm with 18mm being the most common.

The Photos:

The challenge for this shoot was the slowly changing lighting conditions as the heavy cloud cover rolled in, changing the mood from light and airy to dark and moody.  The other issue to contend with was the green tint, due to the light reflection off the grass and trees.  When doing white balance, it was very obvious there was a heavy green tint to the light.  The other challenge, which was not really photo related, was ensuring I didn’t step in any big piles of poop. That is just something you have to consider when shooting on a farm.  Now onto some photos.

This first image of  Emily-Grace as Belle is one of my favorites, because it aligns nicely to the opening scene in the animated version of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”.  While we didn’t have a town square and a fountain, we had sheep. For this image I exposed for the sky and filled with flash.  The flash was positioned to my right and slightly up.  In post I fine tuned the exposure, adjusted the white balance, and added a touch of clarity.  I also adjusted the colors slightly and removed some orange form the image. I also pulled down the yellows slightly, to bring up the green in the grass. I then added a vignette to finalize the image.

ISO 100, Shutter 1/250, Aperture F8, Focal Length 18mm 

This next image is of Impressionistic Cosplay as Gandalf the Grey from Lord of the Rings.  It was the last shot of the day, because just as I finished taking the photo, it started to drizzle and then about 10 minutes later a complete downpour.  For this shot I did expose for the sky, even though it is not shown. I place the flash to my right pointed directly towards the cosplayer’s face. In post I adjusted white balance, brought down the exposure a ¼ stop and added some clarity. Then in the color panel I reduced the saturation of the oranges and yellows, to provide pleasing skin tones and grass colors respectively. The flash was a bit strong on the staff so used a mask to decrease the exposure about ½ stop. Then cosplayers face was slightly in shadow due to the had so I used a mask to brighten up his face.  I then finished the image with a vignette.

ISO 200, Shutter 1/80, Aperture F8, Focal Length 18mm 

Overall, the shoot was good.  I personally was trying to avoid taking photos with animals, just for a photo since it is a sanctuary and I was trying to respect the animals. If working with an animal worked with the character, I was all for it, like Belle and the sheep.  The grounds were very pretty, I just wish I would have brought a step stool so I could get a couple cosplayers into the perfect climbing tree.  If you want to see all the final images from this meet up, you can see them here: Burleigh Manor.

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