The Munchkin's Notebook

On January 11 th , I attended the first D.C. Cosplay Photo Shoots ’ meet up of the year.  This meet-up was held at Green House Studios in Fort Washington, Maryland.  The studio was ok, but what really put a damper on the whole experience for me was the studio reeked of a very specific plant, if you know what I mean.   For this session I used: Canon R6 2 Speed light Trigger 1 Light stands Umbrella 24 - 105mm lens Gels Camera Settings: Since this was in the studio, my camera setting did not vary too much.  I shot at ISO 200, and my aperture was evenly distributed between F4, F5.6, and F6.3. My shutter speed varied between 1/200s and 1/250s.  While my focal length varied from 24mm to 40mm, with the most common being 24mm.   The Photos: Let’s start with this image of Susannahvi24 as Kratos from God of War.  This is an interesting background to use for the character as it has nothing to do with the ancient Greek setting of G...

On January 9 th , Washu Cosplay and I did a slightly impromptu snow session at Great Falls National Park.   This was possible because of the passing of the Explorers Act which allows photography in a National Park with a model without a permit.   Before you get too excited, the law limits equipment and the size of the party; you are allowed your camera, tripod, and handheld lighting equipment, and the group can be no more than 5 people, which includes the photographer, model, and assistants.   So, there are no big lighting setups or big crews; for big shots, you will still need a permit.      For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 1 speed light 1 light stand     The set up For this shoot I was mixing flash and natural light.  In most cases, my model was partially backlighted by the sun.  Thus, I u...

My first official shoot of 2025 was with Lady Cels on January 4 th , to shoot her Queen of Hearts cosplay based off the NoFlutter Design. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 1 FJ400 Westcott Strobes 60-inch umbrella with sock 1 rectangular soft box 1 bell reflector grids 2 C-stands 1 Platypod Sandbags Backdrop stand Savage Primary Red Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps   Gold ring wedding altar pieces Playing cards Flowers Styrofoam block Scotch tape     The set up The inspiration for this shoot was obviously the Queen of Hearts, but I took my set design cues from the original NoFlutter drawing.  I wanted to create something similar to the swirls used in the background of the image, so I started looking at wrought iron garden fences and ended up on gold we...