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1st Cosplay Meet-up of the Year

On January 11th, 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 God of War, but sometimes one must heed the famous words of Tim Gund “make it work”.  So, I arrived at the sitting pose because the cosplayer told me she hasn’t done any images of her sitting yet, so we did some sitting shots.  For this image the light was placed about 15-degrees to my left, without an umbrella.  In post I brought the exposure up about a stop and adjusted the white balance a little towards the cool side as the background lights I felt were too warm.  I increased the clarity and the vibrancy, while using a medium tone curve.  I also applied a blue (shadow) / orange (highlight) color grade to the image, which helped to balance out the shadows and skin tones.  The only other thing I did was clone one of the lights, as one light was out, so I cloned a lit one on top of it to ensure consistency in the background.

Exposure: 1/200s, F5.6, ISO 200, Focal Length: 24mm

This next image is of Twink God Cosplay as Raiden Shogun form Genshin Impact.  This really is a basic portrait shot on black seamless.  The light was placed at about 45-degrees from my right with an umbrella.  In post processing I did very little to the image.  I did the basic adjustments and had to bring up the exposure by a whole stop.  I also added a radial gradient to the face to brighten it slightly.  I then finished the image with a standard vignette.

Exposure: 1/200s, F6.3, ISO 200, Focal Length: 29mm

This last image is of Lokelicious as Alastor from Hazbin Hotel.  I will admit I was struggling a bit with this set up because the black was way more reflective then I thought it was so I kept getting a hotspot on the wall.  I ended up fixing this issue by taking the umbrella off the flash, closing it, and reattaching it as a flag, since I didn’t have any flags with me.  This minimized the spill of light on to the wall.  For this shot I want back to some of my traditional low key styling with a the flash almost 90-degrees to my left, with a narrow spread, lifted high and pointed down.  This lends itself to a detailed lowkey image, which I think works for the character.  In post I adjusted the white balance and brought the exposure up a stop.  I also adjusted the blacks and shadows so one could still see some detail.  I used a medium contrast tone curve on the image and finished the image off with a vignette.

Exposure: 1/250s, F4, ISO 200, Focal Length: 24mm
Wrap Up:

This event was very photographer heavy and cosplayer light; I didn’t shoot with every cosplayer as I was letting the new photographers work.  I will also admit the studio was not inspiring me to create, and I probably should have left the event earlier than I did.   I have looked at the studio previously via PeerSpace and am glad I never decided to book it.  While it may have some of sets, it absolutely reeked of that special plant.  I consciously considered getting back into my car and leaving, and not even taking part in the event, even after driving an hour to get there.  If an event is held at this studio again, I will not attend.  

You can see all the images from the meet-up here: Greenhouse Studio Meet Up

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