Sand & Snow
I mentioned in the last post that I was working on catching up. Here are some of February's photos:
While in NJ, yeu asked about meeting up for photos. Specifically we wanted to do something sort of crazy (like, say, bloody formal wear in a shower), probably involving potential damage to the costume. The original plan involved kitsunesqueak, but that had to change. Maybe I'll get a chance at the original plan sometime this summer.
The new plan became trashing yeu's Hetalia Revolutionary War America.
I took an approach similar to what I had aimed for with my own Baccano photos, of having the damage progress slowly through the pictures. I wish I had more time - we didn't get to actual damaging of the costume until the very end. Though I'm pretty happy with the pictures that I did get.
A little behind the scenes for the shoot:
The large fallen tree trunk that we used was surrounded by thorns, and the only way on/off practically was walking along another small tree trunk. (well, the other option was jumping in the icy water - which would also be the case if yeu lost her balance) On the way back, the thorns kept sticking to her pants and socks, making moving anywhere difficult.
Somehow at the time it didn't seem like nearly as bad of an idea as it does now in retrospect.
As a random photography note, I think the lighting in the middle picture of the three above gets the "cold" feeling across best. Originally, I was thinking a good way to get a cold feeling was a little bit of orange tint to the flash, so the background goes blue-ish. But, now I've decided the best cold look is blown out rim/side light in an reflective umbrella, and slightly over exposed flat ambient fill.
I was thinking about why that works so well (IMO), and I think it's because that's how things really look on snow days - there's a lot of fill naturally (so bright ambient level), and the sun gives a glare (so over-exposed highlights), and then tends to be some cloudiness in the sky (so umbrella to soften our virtual sun)
For post-processing, colors don't need to be cool, they just need to not be vibrant.
On the other side of the country, instead on being snowed in, we were visiting the beach.
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Synchronicity Rin, under the Santa Monica Pier.
One of the various LA area cosplay groups apparently hosts a yearly gathering at the Santa Monica pier area. I saw the post on cosplay.com, and figured I should visit since it's literally down the street from me. I didn't have much time however due to Katsucon cosplay work and such, so I didn't stay long. Though it seems right about when I was heading out is when things started to really pick up :/
Ever since wandering around under the pier with evanae & random_karen last summer, I've been wanting to take cosplay pictures under there. Even if my stay was brief, I got what I was primarily aiming for.
In addition to the Rin pictures, I shot a Steampunk variation of Rogue from X-Men under a different part of the pier.
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Katsucon is also mostly done and I'll probably post about that soon.
Last weekend was Walpurgisnacht. Photos from that day may be up as soon as next week, since I shot film and don't have a lot to sort though.
While in NJ, yeu asked about meeting up for photos. Specifically we wanted to do something sort of crazy (like, say, bloody formal wear in a shower), probably involving potential damage to the costume. The original plan involved kitsunesqueak, but that had to change. Maybe I'll get a chance at the original plan sometime this summer.
The new plan became trashing yeu's Hetalia Revolutionary War America.
I took an approach similar to what I had aimed for with my own Baccano photos, of having the damage progress slowly through the pictures. I wish I had more time - we didn't get to actual damaging of the costume until the very end. Though I'm pretty happy with the pictures that I did get.
A little behind the scenes for the shoot:
The large fallen tree trunk that we used was surrounded by thorns, and the only way on/off practically was walking along another small tree trunk. (well, the other option was jumping in the icy water - which would also be the case if yeu lost her balance) On the way back, the thorns kept sticking to her pants and socks, making moving anywhere difficult.
Somehow at the time it didn't seem like nearly as bad of an idea as it does now in retrospect.
As a random photography note, I think the lighting in the middle picture of the three above gets the "cold" feeling across best. Originally, I was thinking a good way to get a cold feeling was a little bit of orange tint to the flash, so the background goes blue-ish. But, now I've decided the best cold look is blown out rim/side light in an reflective umbrella, and slightly over exposed flat ambient fill.
I was thinking about why that works so well (IMO), and I think it's because that's how things really look on snow days - there's a lot of fill naturally (so bright ambient level), and the sun gives a glare (so over-exposed highlights), and then tends to be some cloudiness in the sky (so umbrella to soften our virtual sun)
For post-processing, colors don't need to be cool, they just need to not be vibrant.
On the other side of the country, instead on being snowed in, we were visiting the beach.
%207.jpg)
%202.jpg)
%203.jpg)
%208.jpg)
Synchronicity Rin, under the Santa Monica Pier.
One of the various LA area cosplay groups apparently hosts a yearly gathering at the Santa Monica pier area. I saw the post on cosplay.com, and figured I should visit since it's literally down the street from me. I didn't have much time however due to Katsucon cosplay work and such, so I didn't stay long. Though it seems right about when I was heading out is when things started to really pick up :/
Ever since wandering around under the pier with evanae & random_karen last summer, I've been wanting to take cosplay pictures under there. Even if my stay was brief, I got what I was primarily aiming for.
In addition to the Rin pictures, I shot a Steampunk variation of Rogue from X-Men under a different part of the pier.
%201.jpg)
Katsucon is also mostly done and I'll probably post about that soon.
Last weekend was Walpurgisnacht. Photos from that day may be up as soon as next week, since I shot film and don't have a lot to sort though.