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Special Event at the Big Barn

On September 30th, I attended a special D.C. Cosplay Photo Shoots meet-up at Big Barn 1810, in Maryland.  Big Barn 1810 is a great place to shoot, and I have done several one-on-one sessions there in the past.  It is best known for its large windows on the far side of the barn that let in a ton of natural light.

For this session I used:

  • Canon R6
  • 2 Speed lights
  • Trigger
  • 1 Light stands
  • 24 - 105mm lens
  • Gels

Camera Settings:

For this shoot, I used an ISO 125.  I don’t know why I used ISO 125; I think it is because I bumped the dial-up from 100.  While ISO 125 is an odd ISO, it got the job done.  My aperture ranged from F4.5 to F20 with most shots being at either F5 or F8.  There was a large variation in aperture based on the setting, lighting, and how much I wanted in focus.  With the R6 I’m more comfortable shooting at some of the wider apertures.   The shutter speed ranged from 1/60s to 1/125s with the most shots being taken at 1/250s which is the native sync speed for my speed lights.  My focal length ranged from 24mm to 70mm with most shots being taken at 24mm.

The Photos:

This was a special shoot for D.C. Cosplay long-term subscribers, so there were only four cosplayers in attendance.  So, I’ll cover the best shot from each of the cosplayers I worked with.  Let’s start with my favorite image, mostly due to the editing, of  Gloria of In the Long Run Designs in a 1780's floral Italian gown.  For this image the light was to my right, to create a bit of Rembrandt lighting, but what makes this image special is the editing.  I used a dark style edit, which requires me to properly expose and tone the image before doing the dark edit.  To get this look, I first dropped the exposure of the properly exposed image to darken it.  Then desaturated each of the color channels then slowly brought them back one-by-one starting with the least dominant color to the most dominant color.  When bringing back the color the trick is to keep the colors muted but still visible.  Most of the colors are at saturations between -40 to -78, while the overall saturation for the image is at -3 with a clarity of +4.  I think the dark edit gives the image a nice moody feel and makes it a bit more rustic.  

ISO 125, Aperture F8, Shutter 1/160s

This next image is of  Lady Cels in her Chun Li cosplay.  For this image, I put her in a tiny back room of the barn that had these wire cages, like you would grow tomatoes in just larger.  I then put a blue gel behind her to go with the color of the cosplay and lit up the wire cages to provide interest to the image.  I then had her stand in a strong pose and used a second speedlight, at a relatively tight zoom to light her face and upper body.  I wanted the eye to stay in the top half of the frame.  While I could have cropped the image, the strength of the pose would have been lost.  I did all the standard edits to the image and added a slight blue-on-blue color grade to finish the image to make the blue pop just a bit more. 


ISO 125, Aperture F5, Shutter 1/160s

This next image is of Lokelicious as the Nun from the horror movie "The Nun".  For this image I used the big heavy chains in the barn with a single speedlight.  Then in post I went for a grainy black and white image to give it that old horror movie feel.  I then added a red tone to the shadows to give the image further dimension.

ISO 125, Aperture F14, Shutter 1/200s

This final image is of Soniagchavira as Sarah Sanderson from Hocus Pocus.  I like this one because it embodies the character and tells a bit of story, especially if you are familiar with the movie.  The character is sneaking up the barn ladder looking for children, which is part of the storyline of the movie.  The Sanderson sisters, who are witches, need to suck the life out of at least one child before the end of Halloween, to live forever.  Thus, the sneaking around.  I shot this with one speed light to my left, raised high, and pointed down at the model.  I then did the basic edits and applied a blue (shadow)/ orange (highlight) color grade to it and applied a slight vignette to the image.

ISO 125, Aperture F5, Shutter 1/250s

Overall, this was a good shoot, though I did the editing quickly because I was just starting the semester for a special master’s program for my day job.  Note, the program is fast paced and intense because it condenses a two-year program into nine months.  I think several of these images could probably be improved upon, but my headspace was already starting to transition to more technical and academic thinking versus creative and artistic thinking.   So, I feel the images are good just not my best effort.  This is something I will need to work on to ensure I have consistency within my creative work. 

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