Comic Cosplay - C2E2

This spring we took a little trip down to one of our favorite Comic Conventions C2E2 it is based in Chicago and this year they celebrated their 10th anniversary. It’s always great fun and for a photographer like myself it’s a great way to tickle our fun side and remind me why we stayed in photography in the first place.

     The people that go to these events and who dress up put so much time into their costumes and create beautiful works of art. It’s always a joy to see what someone can come up with for a costume. it may not be popular to you or I but to that cosplayer it means the world to have someone notice they are dressed up as Mal from Firefly (YES, it did deserve more that one season) or Sonoshee from Redline.

     This year Vagabond Photography for at least one day will be walking around the first Wisconsin Comic Convention, it something new and even though I am not there in any official capacity and I look forward to seeing what the cosplayers of Milwaukee and the surrounding area can come up with. I hope those convention goes over well even though it is competing with Summerfest’s opening weekend. I also look forward to finding some new comic books by independent writers.

    My other goal for going to this event is also to find some local cosplayers who would like to do some photo sessions over the next few months involving their characters and trying to fit them into scenes that fit their persona. Even though I am located just outside Milwaukee in East Troy WI about 35 minutes from down town Milwaukee, I work in town regularly and would enjoy the chance to create something new that both parties involved would love. Can’t wait to meet you and see what we can create together.

Turn the screen off & treat it like film Challenge

A little Challenge: Turn the screen off & treat it like film

I went out in the city of Milwaukee last night to scout a few locations for an upcoming session and I noticed a few other photographers out and about doing their thing and having a good time.

The one thing I noticed though, is almost everyone out there was looking at the back of their cameras on the LCD screens to see if the photograph was the way they wanted it every time they clicked the shutter button. It got me thinking I started with film, moved too digital and now I do the same thing, it's kinda interesting how the times have changed. Also, it’s a little sad, because there was a time we could not see what our images looked like until we developed the film and then went into the dark room and created out prints or had that dreaded W store develop our prints for us. I do miss the darkroom some days.

So what if we found a way to turn that little screen off or temporally black tape over it so we cannot instantly see the result to know if we have to shoot it again or not? Think of it as getting it right in the camera without the instant gratification like we used to have back in the film days.

I’m not saying to do this right off the bat on a payed gig but on a test/fun session just to see how things turn out. I’m willing to bet the first time or two we might need to go back and possibly try again or modify it in Photoshop or your current editing software more than you needed to over just looking at it on the screen. I think in the long run it would give us a more intimate understanding of our cameras and accessory gear.

Give it a try for one or two fun sessions I encourage you and I will try this myself to only look through the viewfinder and not at the LCD screen on the back, wait till you get home to see if you got it right like in the days of film.

I would love to see what you come up with right out of the camera leave a photo in the comment section below.

Best,
Tim Gumz