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Cosplay Meet-Up: Brookside Gardens

On May 3, I attended the D.C. Cosplay Photo Shoots’ meet up at Brookside Gardens in Maryland.  I have always wanted to shoot at the garden but haven’t because it a little over an hour away in DC traffic.  Plus Medowlark Gardens are only 15 minutes away from me.

For this session I used:

  • Canon R6
  • 1 Speed light
  • Trigger
  • Mini Round Soft Box/Beauty Dish
  • 24 - 105mm lens
  • Gels
  • Assistant (i.e. my husband)

Camera Settings:

This was an outside shoot with variable lighting conditions, thus my camera settings changed accordingly.  My Iso ranged from ISO 100 to ISO 400 with ISO 100 being the most common.  I used for distinct apertures F5, F6.3, F8, and F9, with F5 being the most common aperture.  My shutter speed ranged from 1/50s to 1/250s  with 1/250s being the most common speed as that is my native flash sync speed.  My focal length ranged from 24mm to 70mm with the most common being 24mm.   I also placed a ¼ cut CTO gel on my flash to add warmth to the images and better match the color of the sunlight.

The Photos:

Let’s start with a photo of Saragobragh in her Elizabeth Bennet outfit from “Pride and Prejudice”.  The first image I like because it has movement and the expression on the face is good. For this image I did all the standard adjustments, then added circular gradient to the model’s face to brighten it slightly.  I also added a blue (shadow) / orange (highlight) color grade to the image just to warm it up slightly. Then finished with a heavy vignette. 

ISO 100, Apeture F5, Shutter 1/125s, Focal Length 31mm

This next image is of Mirroredmoth as Happen from Oxventure Wyrdwood D&D.  I like how I could use the garden to have it look like she was coming out of the woods into a field.  For this image I only did standard edits, then added a heavy vignette to finish of the image.

ISO 100, Apeture F5, Shutter 1/100s, Focal Length 43mm

Wrap Up:

The location was nice and smaller than the map makes it out to be. While we started as a group in the Maple Terrace and Yew Garden, when we moved as a group to Azalea Garden, everyone dispersed and I couldn’t locate anyone because there was no central meeting point, plus that garden is mostly just a wooden path, not a manicured garden.  I personally think it would have been better if we had a central meeting point at the Maple Terrace or Winter Garden, and not kept in a tight group.  But I’m guessing we were kept in the group due to the permit requirements for the garden, as only one person had a wristband.  Overall, it is a nice place, much flatter than Meadowlark Garden.  Would I shoot at Brookside again, yes, but I think in a one-on-one setting instead of a group.  It is a nice garden, but not sure it lived up to all the hype I have seen about it from other photographers.  I might just need to explore it more.   

Finally, during this shoot, I was not happy with the light coming from the modifier I was using.  I’m continually disappointed with the light, due to the disk in the center which is supposed to make it act like a beauty dish.  However, all it results in is a dead spot in my image.  I think if I use this modifier again, it will be off the disk, so I don’t get the dead spot.  This led me to be unhappy with a lot of my images from the shoot.  But that is what these shoots are for, to test equipment and techniques, so I don’t make the same mistakes on a paid session.

You can see all the images from the meet-up here: Brookside Gardens

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