Anime LA 2011 in Slow Motion
(Reposted from http://otacracy.com/serious-stuff/111-anime-la-2011-in-slow-motion; also, those pics aren't all from ALA 2011, but the vids below are...)
Cosplay photography kinda bugs me.
Yeah, I've been doing it for a while, whether it be for friends at cons or (rarely) at private photoshoots. I enjoy photography, and I appreciate cosplay, but I've always considered myself more a con photographer than a cosplay photographer. A cosplayer facing the camera with a practiced pose never struck me as quite so interesting as the con itself: a huge writhing beast, barely in control by the executive decision makers at the top and the gofers at the bottom; always undulating, creeping forwards with the funk of con attendees and the cries of memes.
Con photographs, pictures showing the convention in action, comprise the vast majority of my personal favorites.
I usually took these pictures with a a digital SLR. However, I didn't have one available by the time Anime Los Angeles rolled around this year. Instead, I had a Casio pocket-sized point and shoot camera. Honestly, I felt like I couldn't give the con or the cosplayers a proper service with just this cam, especially next to the guys rocking out things like $1000+ Canon L lenses and even more expensive Steadicam rigs. Still, I had to do something; if I couldn't be better with the Casio, I could be unique.
One of the reasons I got the Casio was because of its slow-motion video recording. The Casio EX-FH100 can record video at 640 x 480 resolution with 120 frames-per-second speed. If I can't do comparable quality-wise, maybe I can do something unique...
Here are some videos of cosplayers which follow logically from typical cosplay pictures...
Click to viewAnd here are some videos of the con being... well... a con...
This last one, I particularly like. We see pictures of organized cosplay gatherings like this all the time, but few see it from the cosplayers' perspective, especially as they are being called to the front.
So... yeah. Though I did do some typical picture stuff (see: my flickr set), I did a lot of slow motion video (see: my youtube account) and... I enjoyed doing something different. Despite a different process, I think I did a decent first attempt of sticking with what I enjoy, which is: conveying the con itself while letting the other photographers focus on doing the usual cosplay photography.