It's been a while since Make Them Awesome has done a photo shoot. But given a number of factors we had to ask ourselves: what the Hell do we shoot next? Join Rob and Tacocat as they discuss all of the cosplays they haven't covered yet, and all of the things they talk through when trying to come up with any ideas for a photo project.
Merry Nerdy Christmas!
Tacocat decided to crank out three costumes for Holiday Matsuri this year. So we decided to book some studio time and do some cute Demon Slayer and Sailor Moon Christmas photos.
Home Once Again (Classic Game Fest 2022)
How We Got Here
It’s weird to think how long I’ve been involved with various Game Over Videogames events over the years. A lot of them had to do with recording/capturing various nerd music events they held (all the way back to 2011). But then when Classic Game Fest became a more organized thing at the Palmer Event Center I was there. Primarily to record video of the music performances. But also to get photos of the event overall.
Fast forward to 2019… and we were brought on to be cosplay guests at the event. That was a lot of fun meeting people and hanging out with our friends in the nerd scenes.
As we got closer to 2020 we started talking about future events. One of which included CGF. As we had done the photobooth at Anime on Ice not long after CGF 2019 we had wondered if there might also be a place for that. But we also had to wonder if there were pieces we could bring in that could make the idea “very CGF”. We did some great work at AOI. But since CGF is a retrogaming convention we had to think through what we could bring in to make it more specific to that event.
I had met with David Kaelin, the owner of Game Over Videogames and Classic Game Fest to pitch the idea in February 2020. In previous years there were various backgrounds people could take photos at. But what if we could offer something more? I will say there were a few ideas that certainly got his attention. Very crazy things no one would have considered. So he certainly wanted to see what we could do with the idea.
But then Rona happened.
We were originally brought on for the 2021 event… but given the availability of vaccines at the time we decided it was best to back out, at least as a group. I myself did go as a pretty last minute thing. I did not expect the layout changes, primarily where the lower floor would be all vendors/artists and the upper floor would be music and panels. That was a good change in my opinion since the bands would not have to deal with a room that was basically metal and concrete. I mean have you heard how hard performers like Descendants of Erdrick, Creative Mind Frame, and Bitforce play? The upper rooms made for much better sound.
When the planning started for the 2022 event, David asked us if we’d be onboard. We genuinely felt better about bringing our ideas to this year’s event, so we were in. Though given a number of factors we didn’t go 100% in the direction of what we had pitched back in 2020. But we could certainly do a lot without the pieces that had helped bring the overall idea to mind.
If you’re wondering what those pieces were… let’s just say they involved custom CGF props. And a bunch of video game consoles. We’ll leave your minds wondering for now.
The Event
With regards to our shooting space, it wasn’t too far removed from the photo booth space we had at Anime on Ice in 2019. But instead of a 13’ by 11’ foot locker room we had a 10’ x 20’ vendor space. With tables in one half of the space. The tables were great for us to show off merch, hide some of our gear, support our tethering system (which we added a 24” monitor to this time around, which was VERY helpful), etc. Though at times one table could kinda get in the way if I need to do a full length shot of someone. At one point Kirsten suggested “Just shoot from in FRONT of the table.” Good thing I had a long enough cable to be able to do that.
There was a very interesting theme that developed pretty early on in the event: Very Dramatic Lighting. And by that I mean opting for more tightly focused lighting in various ways. There was a bit of deviation from this at times. But for some reason with a good amount of the characters we were able to shoot, going that route made a lot more sense. I don’t think we can put our finger on WHY that was… it just was. Maybe it was something akin to that joke about adding garlic to food: “Keep adding it until the voices of your ancestors whisper to you to stop.”
Given we hadn’t done a photo booth since Anime on Ice 2019, photo demos since Ushicon 2020, and that this was Classic Game Fest we honestly had no idea how people would think of us and the way we worked. I can say with 100% certainty that much like other events people were totally onboard with us. So it was nice to see that we’ve been able to maintain consistency even with an almost 2.5 year gap.
Final Thoughts
It felt good to finally be able to put together a photo booth at a new space. People really appreciate being a part of the creative process, and the attendees of Classic Game Fest who stopped by were no different. Though we couldn’t have done it without David seeing the value in having such a thing at CGF. And we’re thankful he gave us the opportunity to do so. Hopefully we can do this again next year.
Cosplay Breakdown: Sophie Hatter and Ponyo (Hannah Alexander Version)
Tacocat is all about making costumes based on Hannah Alexander's designs. Recently she made Sophie Hatter and Ponyo for herself and her sister Mermaid Child. They were so good they ended up winning Best in Show at the Project Akon cosplay contest! If you want to know how they were made then you need to watch this video!
Sophie/Ponyo photos by AlphonseMedia
Website: https://alphonsemedia.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alphonsemedia/
Cosplay Breakdown: Belle (Beauty and the Beast)
Want to know how Tacocat Cosplay made her amazing Belle costume? Well in this video we talk about how she put it all together. We cover the cage, petticoat, corset, under skirt, top skirt, bodice and wig. If you want some insight on how to make a ballgown and command a room then watch this video!
Belle photos by AlphonseMedia
Website: https://alphonsemedia.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alphonsemedia/
Experimental Session #1: The Legend of Zelda... and Sophie
Crazy to think we finally did a proper Make Them Awesome project after almost two and a half years. Once we got the ball rolling, you couldn’t tell we hadn’t worked together in that long.
Though we decided to start getting back to working together in a different way.
Experimental Sessions?
Once my life got to a point where we could consider doing projects again, we started talking about what exactly we should work on. We talked through what bits we had been able to do within the last 2.5 years, and how some things worked and some didn’t. As we discussed the projects that did work, there was something pointed out to WHY they worked so well: overall simplicity. There weren't super crazy lighting setups, set building, or really defined ideas for shots. We basically went in with a loose set of ideas, and explored to see what we would get.
So instead of trying to tackle anything off of our existing project list, it was suggested that we have some sessions that were along the same lines. Just go somewhere and do something with barely any structure and see what we get. Considering I hadn’t shot anything since July of last year I thought it was a great idea. I did need to get reacclimated to shooting after not being able to for so long. Going in and not expecting a particular result would certainly help with that.
Character Selection and Team Location Scouting
The overall idea was “cute springtime location pics”. Tacocat suggested we revisit Mckinney Falls for this since it did have a great mix of fields, forest areas, walking paths, and water features. Though she and I decided to go “rescout” the park together. Which worked out well since 1) we hadn’t been there since late 2018, and 2) Tacocat was able to call out spots and sight lines she thought would work well for the characters we planned to cover.
Photo by Tacocat
The initial characters we were going to shoot were Tacocat as Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle and Allybelle as Princess Zelda. Though Allybelle would actually have two versions of Zelda: one in Ally’s Zelda inspired wedding dress (that Tacocat made), and her ceremonial outfit from Breath of the Wild that she had purchased from Miccostumes. With the water features we thought we could possibly get some photos inspired by one particular cutscene in the game.
As Tacocat and I were scouting she said to me “Hey, why not have Ryan as Link?” Ryan is Ally’s husband, and since they had a Zelda themed wedding, he conveniently had a Link costume that would fit this idea. I was like “Hey, see if he can show up.” Thankfully he was able to.
Photo by Allybelle
Gear Choices
In keeping with the simplicity of the project idea I used only one light the whole day. Since it was potentially going to be sunny out I brought along the Godox AD600B. That way if I needed a lot of power for a possible shot I knew it could handle it.
For lens choices I used primarily the Fuji 50mm f/2 for the bulk of the session. Because a lot of the potential spots we would shoot at were so large I was actually able to back up far enough away for full length shots of anyone. Plus with that focal length we would be able to get some good background separation.
Photo by Tacocat
Texas Weather: More Unpredictable Than Usual
Let’s just say trying to plan around Texas weather is a balancing act. Though the day we chose to shoot was even more RNG than normal. When we set up the idea we chose to shoot Easter Sunday. At the time we did that it was going to be upper 70s and partly cloudy. Which would make for great shooting weather and provide for great light. Then as the day grew closer the forecast changed to lower 90s and mostly sunny. Then it went back to upper 70s. Then chances of rain. The day before, the possibility of precipitation went to 0%.
Turns out it DID rain early that morning. As long as it didn’t rain during the day we were fine. Though for the first part of the shoot it was really overcast. I'm not a fan of shooting in that situation, mostly just because it kills all the depth out of the background. And you can only do so much in the editing stage to try to bring it back and make it look normal.
Thankfully the sun did come out for a while and really helped add some dimension to the background. Then it became somewhat overcast again. Ergh.
Photo by Ryan Hallick
While we prepared to shoot Zelda’s ceremonial outfit I got a notification on my phone that a severe thunderstorm watch had just been issued for the central Texas area. When I saw that I was just like “Fuck, really?” Considering we were planning on doing water shots I was less than thrilled with the timing. We were glad that no storms appeared during this part of the session. In fact the storms never did show up and they ended up canceling the watch early.
Texas weather, please be less random next time.
The Shoot
Photo by Luis Guevara
Let’s just say you couldn’t tell it had been so long since we had worked together. It was our usual free exchange of shot/pose ideas, wig moming, and trolling. Lots of trolling. I mean Luis is part of the team after all. Though none of us realized the power of Ryan and Luis team trolling until that day. Mistakes may have been made in that regard.
The overall simplicity of the session idea really helped us just flow creatively. And we were able to get some good pics because of that.
There is an amusing bit that I don’t think many cosplayers or photographers can say they’ve experienced: getting nibbled on by fish. While we were shooting ceremonial Zelda at the upper falls while I was in the water shooting Ally on the rocks on the opposite shore I kept thinking something was brushing up against my legs. But when I’d go to look I’d see nothing. After Ally got in the water and was there for a while she said, “The fish are biting at my legs and it’s annoying me.” Tacocat mentioned she felt the same thing.
Apparently MTA has a flavor.
Photo by Ryan Hallick
Photo by Ryan Hallick
Final Thoughts
It was great for us just to get back together again and do SOMETHING. While not all of MTA was there (Mermaid Child couldn’t make this session) it was certainly 100% us.
We do have plans for two more experimental sessions: one in the studio and one outdoors. The characters and overall ideas have been determined. But we're going to approach them with the same frame of mind as we did this session.
What will those specific sessions involve? You’ll just have to wait and see.
Getting Back To Music
One of the ways we wanted to start branching out at MTA was to not only offer our services to cosplayers but other creatives as well. We know so many artists in various fields that all of the experience we’ve gained over the years could also help them.
The first couple of steps toward that brought me back to what started my photography journey: music.
The Music Was Always There
I’ve talked quite a bit about how covering shows in various ways started to help define my creative style. A good bit of that would be around thinking through composition and framing. For a number of years not only would I be using a 18-55mm lens but also some form of longer zoom like a 75-300mm. Since most venues I went to did not have any sort of “media pit” or the few that did I would not have access to them. I’d have to get creative. Plus I did not want to get in the way of the people enjoying the show.
Using the longer zoom lenses was really the reason why I described my shooting style as “concert portraits” for some time. Getting a pic of one member of the band from mid-thigh or waist up and filling the frame with them. Depending on the group I’d sometimes be able to do this with two or three members in the same way. I’d still try to get full body shots or wider band shots. But the close-ups were something I’d always come back to. Moving around and trying to change my viewing angle helped a lot with that as well. I joke that I move around like I’m in combat when working in a studio setting. Covering shows is probably where it came from. I keep my shoes on during performances though.
One other big piece for me was learning to anticipate how people might move about on stage. Even if I had not seen a particular group before if the music they were performing was adjacent to stuff I knew I’d be able to figure their vibe out and work accordingly. This is super helpful especially with performers who move around a lot. I mean have you seen Descendants of Erdrick, Lex the Lexicon, Bitforce, Shubzilla, EyeQ, or Megaran? Yeah, they certainly don’t stand still.
In my head I started referring to that as “the art of paying attention”. Not so much as to when exactly to click the shutter. But also when I feel like the current moments could lead to some amazing photo possibilities. It’s worked well for not only shooting performances but also in our cosplay/fine art work. There’s been times when a subject will do something completely random, I’ll see it, and say “Hold on, we need to do a photo of that.” And it’s led to some of our best photos.
While I had stepped away from covering music the way I had in the past, all of that experience had a direct influence on the work we’ve done over the past few years. And it would certainly still fit working with musicians in whatever capacity.
The First Step: The Masters of Unlocking
Let’s just say that Texas is really good for having video game music bands spring up at random.
I had known one of the guitarists, Matt Brewer, for a few years through another friend of ours. Not only is he nerdy as shit, he has deep knowledge of music, is a great cook, and certainly knows what the fuck when it comes to beer. So he and I get along great.
He started The Masters of Unlocking with fellow guitarist Bryan Dixon. Not only are they both talented… but they also do some “deep cuts” when it comes to video game music. That’s something I can certainly appreciate.
They asked if they could hire us to get photos to use for social media and electronic press kits. The only photos they had prior to this were ones I had taken of them when they were on the bill for the Descendants of Erdrick 10th anniversary show. Both of them loved those pics. So when they pinged us about it of course we were down.
I knew at first we wanted some evenly lit shots of them on a neutral background. From there we got creative. I knew I wanted to do some neat stuff with colored gels, but wasn’t quite sure what to go with at first. I asked Matt and Bryan, and they mentioned that in the future their band logo would have different accent colors. So we went with matching those colors as a direction. And all of us thought it worked pretty well.
Near the end of our studio session time I wanted to try something really dumb. I put four Yongnuo strobes on a bracket behind them, had Luis spray a whole bunch of Atmosphere Aerosol in front of it, and took shots while they were playing. When people saw that pic some said “I’m getting some Tenacious D vibes from this.” The idea totally came from one scene in the video for “Tribute”. We were all greatly amused by that.
The Second Step: Bone Pilots
Now a good chunk of this band I had a lot of history with. I had known Justin Olejnik (drummer) and Russ Tanner (guitarist/vocalist) for a number of years through some other bands. But it was Jen Borland (keyboardist/vocalist) who’s pretty much been there since the beginning of my creative journey. The two of us have been through a lot together. Not only as artists but also by being a part of each other’s lives in general.
The cellist, Stephen Jones (AKA Professor Steve), announced that he would be leaving the band. But for a very good reason. He had taken a position in Lithuania to lead a team involved with genetic engineering technology research. The fact that he and his group will be working on improving tools that are used in helping cure diseases is pretty awesome. It’s sad to see him go. But at least he’ll be doing his part to help make the world a better place. So they put together one last show to give him a proper send off. And they asked me to come take photos. Which of course I was down for.
The funny thing is that it was at Kick Butt Coffee. Which was the same venue where the Descendants of Erdrick 10th anniversary show took place 19 months ago.
Given that it had been so long since I had covered a show I didn’t know how I would do with getting good pics. But much like the more recent studio projects we’ve done it was like there was no year-plus long gap at all.
The Positive Feedback Loop
Aside from the “art of paying attention” bit I mentioned earlier there’s still more where cosplay, fine art portraits, and music can feed into each other. One is paying attention to lighting. I think some of my love for playing with colored lights and shaping them comes from all of the shows I’ve shot in the past. There is certainly some neat stuff I’ve seen with stage lighting that would be really cool to try outside of that.
The big thing for me with all of these genres is “capturing images of people”. Though the term sounds more simple than I’m implying here.
For instance with cosplay we’re never about “we’re going to show this character as everyone else understands them.” We aim more for “how do YOU understand this character” and “how do you see yourself as them?” And that’s something that I think really brings something to our photos.
I approach musicians in the same way. How people are on stage can have various levels of departure from how they are normally. There’s certainly some fun to be had there with that and great pics to be taken. So if I get these people in front of my camera outside of a performance I want to figure out the space between when they’re on stage versus where they’re not. And in a way a lot of this could be applied to working with artists in other fields as well.
Final Thoughts
I did back away from covering music so I could really explore what was possible with cosplay and fine art portraits.
Now that I’ve had a chance to come back around to music… maybe there’s a lot more possibilities there.
Admittedly for the longest time I was putting energy into the whole “live” aspect and really hadn’t considered a lot outside of that. I did get brought in for a couple of projects during that time that didn’t involve a performance. But at the time I hadn’t thought to possibly do more in that realm.
When I consider what I’ve learned from stepping out of that space it was probably for the better. Now I can take the newer knowledge and do things I wouldn’t have thought of before.
And others can take advantage of that.
The Masters of Unlocking
We're All More Than Just Content Creators
There’s been a term I’ve been hearing more and more creatives in the spaces we run in use to describe themselves: “content creator”. Even from people who work we admire and have learned from. To us they’re people who inspire, educate, and entertain us. Both in photography and cosplay.
As I kept seeing that term come up my mind kept coming back to one question: why those words exactly?
What Is A “Content Creator” In The First Place?
In my head I had some understanding of what the term could mean. But I wasn’t sure if I’d be missing something if I tried to write out what I thought the definition was. Thankfully there were other places online that could help with that.
From Wikipedia let’s look at the meaning of ‘content creation’:
Content creation is the contribution of information to any media and most especially to digital media for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. Content is "something that is to be expressed through some medium as speech, writing or any of various arts" for self-expression, distribution, marketing and/or publication. Typical forms of content creation include maintaining and updating websites, blogging, article writing, photography, videography, online commentary, the maintenance of social media accounts, and editing and distribution of digital media. A Pew survey described content creation as the creation of "the material people contribute to the online world."
Oddly enough Adobe actually had a really good definition of ‘content creator’:
A content creator is someone who creates entertaining or educational material to be expressed through any medium or channel. Content creation especially pertains to digital content, since that’s where the majority of content is consumed.
Okay, so we now have a better understanding of the term then what I could have possibly written out on my own. But when we consider these two pieces of info it’s a pretty wide umbrella. There will be bits and pieces of each of these I’ll reference throughout this article.
Thinking About The Tools We Work With
By ‘tools’ I mean platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, etc. And for those of us that have our own websites then search engines will play into this as well.
We all know that these platforms want us to be as active as possible. Not only just from the reach perspective but also for any possible monetization options. I’ve known a number of creators who have been able to take advantage of this on multiple platforms, and I’m glad they were able to achieve that.
Though with the information given to us by these platforms… can we truly say why people are there?
With the way data is given to us now we can’t fully figure out why exactly people decided to interact with anything offered. We have no way of knowing if it was an educational, amusing, or other emotional level of response. Also consider that a lot of these services don’t have a good way to dump out the data to truly compare and contrast (well, without a lot of manual work or investment in really expensive tools anyway). Then there’s the whole content analysis bit with regards to comments to think about.
I have to wonder how this data (or lack thereof) influences the decisions a creator makes. Or how they view themselves and their work.
What Is Being Put Out There
There are certainly photographers who are really good about giving solid creative educational info along with photos that evoke an emotional response out of the viewer. These are really the kind of people I will most likely follow. Though it also doesn’t hurt if they’re entertaining in some other way.
After that things start to get a bit cloudy. With photography there’s certainly a lot of things we need to think about from technical perspectives. Whether it be in the gear used or the post-production process. Now there are some people out there that are really good about providing creative applications within that space. Though for some reason that isn’t always the case, especially when it comes to talking about new equipment.
Following that there is this weird space of “entertainment in education wrapping”. Those videos you come across where the title makes it seem like it could contain some new knowledge. Once you view it the educational portion of the video is very small where the rest is completely irrelevant to the subject. Or the presentation of the supposed educational parts is questionable (i.e., the “easy photo hack” videos).
And then there are the rest. The ones that try to get your attention to help “feed the machines”. You know, the things offered that initially seem to offer some sort of wisdom but don’t really deliver anything meaningful. There’s been a number of articles and videos I’ve seen where I’ve been like “Okay, I’m not exactly sure why you decided to put this together and share it?”
When we consider that…
1: The audience for those wanting to learn about photography is rather large
2: How the various platforms we all use all rely on consistent and regular updating
I get why the quality of material runs the gamut. It’s really why I spend more time paying attention to the kinds of people I described in the first paragraph. They are definitely bringing something to their audiences in multiple ways.
So why is the descriptor they may choose to describe themselves “content creator”?
Rethinking The Words
In a way I can see why someone may choose to describe themselves that way. It is a term that very much helps in the “elevator pitch” type of conversation. Though I have to wonder how those who use it may follow up to provide context for what exactly they do. Then there is also the consideration of how a potential recipient understands those words.
To be completely candid… I’m not fond of the wording. Mostly because I feel like it’s lacking. Which I’ll go into here in a bit.
I posted a question to my personal Facebook account…
Does anyone else dislike the term "content creator"?
A lot of my friends are creative people. Mostly musicians but also in other disciplines as well. I wasn’t sure how much reaction I’d get with this since I’ve tossed out “larger creative world” questions in the past and have not gotten much.
This actually got quite a bit of commentary.
Does content or content creator mean anything on their own at this point?
Given the definitions provided earlier this is a good question.
Only when it’s used in place of “artist”/“musician”/“DJ”/etc. Just ‘cause they’re Instagramming, or posting on TikTok, doesn’t mean there isn’t artistry going on.
Yes. It was a sort of useful catch all term for media folks making art of some kind, but now it just means someone who posts things on social media, which is kind of meaningless.
It was interesting how these two comments brought up the art in anything presented without any sort of prompting. Though these were similar to thoughts I had when pondering the words.
Yes. I fucking hate it.
I still find it a bit creepy and dystopian.
It’s literally better than “Influencer”.
I dislike it less than influencer.
Haha I was just thinking earlier today about how long that and “influencer” have actually been around. They are so ubiquitous now..
I must admit I was amused how the term “influencer” got brought up a few times. I will admit I also certainly have issues with that word.
Now this last comment was really interesting. This was a friend of mine who I’ve known since my freshman year of high school (1992… hold on, lemme take some ibuprofen for my back). They’ve stated for years that they “don’t have a creative bone in their body”. For someone like that to say this… I think it has some power.
IMHO 'Content Creator' means nothing. It's come to be a term that people can use to make themselves feel legitimate without real effort. I have a ton of respect for those people who 'do' the thing, being as I am not one of them. The artist that makes art. The photographers, models, filmmakers, writers, musicians, etc... that put themselves and their work out there to mean something. Hollow work, or meaningless content, for the sake of likes, disturbs me greatly.
In a lot of ways that was why I phrased the question the way I did. And it really hinged on one specific word:
Content.
Right now even with all of the technological advancements we’ve had, automation really has no true understanding of why things are presented and reacted upon. But the data we’re currently collecting makes us think we can gain some sort of knowledge with this information. I have to question that. Also with how the current platforms have the constant need of new data it’s so much that maybe us as creatives end up thinking about how to more easily describe the work we’re putting out there. And maybe by extension how we think of ourselves.
If we think about the word “content” it just implies something that exists without any implications of the value something presented might have. Consume it and move on. With the number of creative people I’ve run into over the years I’ve learned that there are those who want to offer more than just the consumption of anything. To me and others they’re putting out more than just “content”.
Now do I have a replacement term to offer here? No I don’t. And it’s really because I can’t speak to the various skills and experiences of anyone possibly reading this. Nor do I know their understanding of their own work.
For those who are truly trying to put in the effort in their work and have it have meaning for their people… how could we possibly highlight that effort in the way we describe ourselves?
Back In The Saddle Again
Man, our first in studio photo session in over a year and a half. And it actually wasn’t even one of our own projects!
How We Got Here
A while back Tacocat learned of the existence of the Universal Online Cosplay Contest. With cons not being a thing during 2020 a bunch of well known and talented cosplayers decided to put together their own online contest. Which really they threw together in a few weeks. Because it was so quickly built and the short submission window they figured they’d get something like 30 entries. They ended up with 200+ entries from 20+ countries. Talk about mind blowing. And honestly the level of craftsmanship for that contest was nuts. All the entries that were in the Intermediate category could have easily been Masters at a local con.
For the 2021 contest they did change the category structure to more of a method based structure (Needlework and Armor) along with a general Beginners category and one called Out Of This World for the really insane builds. That along with the longer submission window brought in more than 250 contestants from over 30 countries. The Needlework category had quite a bit of Texas rep, so we were happy to see that.
UOCC also started a Discord server. Tacocat and I both joined it. It’s been a really good community with a lot of info sharing. And there’s quite a few Texas peeps in there. Some we knew or knew of along with a few new ones. One we didn’t know was a cosplayer who goes by the name ATXSpider. He was one of the Finalists in the Needlework category with a really good Spiderman costume. Because we were local he hit me up about possibly doing a studio photoshoot with one of his Spiderman costumes (let’s just say he has a few). We were like “Hey, why not?”
The Prep
Initially the studio space we were gonna use was Soundcheck, mostly because the size of the rooms we’ve used in the past were so large. But we found out not only had Soundcheck moved from its previous location they were still working on building their rehearsal rooms. So we fell back to another well known location: Waveform Austin. All of the gear they have would help make our lives easier.
My big focus point for this project was around lighting. I really wanted to try to capture some dramatic lighting so I certainly had in mind some ideas of what modifiers to use and how to place them. But while I was looking for gear to use on another upcoming project I somehow randomly found these interestingly shaped reflectors from Godox. I saw the possibilities with them and they were really inexpensive. So I grabbed two of them.
Outside of that there wasn’t a ton of prep. Given that the subject was Spiderman we all had a really good idea for poses and such. The only thing that was considered from the start was to use a Halloween webbing prop I found years ago to do some type of web shooting. Though the day before the shoot I asked in our team chat “Hey, should I bring the ground fog machine?” Tacocat was all for the idea, so it came with as well.
The Photo Session
Since both Tacocat and I had only talked to ATXSpider online we genuinely had no clue how he might be in person. He was super cool and really fell into our working vibe pretty well. So as far as that goes it was pretty smooth sailing.
Our ideas for the dramatic lighting really went well for this character. Our main lights were pretty much the same we used on Dark Elegance: an Interfit 36” octobox on one side, and a Paul C. Buff 32” x 40” softbox with grid on the other. These modifiers allowed us to make sure a good amount of light was on Spidey while keeping them off of the background. For the background lighting we started off using Paul C. Buff 10” x 36” strip boxes with grids. Those would eventually be changed out for the Godox reflectors with Rosco colored gels.
The standing, crouching, and “perching on an apple box” shots went smoothly enough. What was really interesting was figuring out all the action shots. In a way it was something I was considering though the approach wasn’t something I had fully fleshed out during the prep stage. Thankfully Tacocat was already one step ahead of me thinking through ideas for that. It did take a little work to get those shots in terms of the action itself, framing, using the fog machine, etc. It was worth it though. And ATXSpider is certainly more agile than the rest of us.
The Edit, or Technology Is Insane
I knew that most of the still shots would be easy to edit. But I wasn’t entirely sure about the action shots. Not so much around say color or contrast editing. More around framing and cropping. Since the seamless paper we were using was nine feet wide and there was the movement that had to be considered during shooting this was something I’d really have to think about in editing.
I knew that Adobe had been doing a lot of work with advances for their Sensei AI for editing. For things like Spot Heals and Patching it tended to work well. Content Aware Fill could sometimes work. Though at other times it produced weird or sometimes downright hilarious results.
To provide context that was with the 2019 version of Photoshop. So what about the 2021 version?
It’s downright batshit insane. In a good way.
Given the seamless paper size, the action involved, and how I attempted to capture there was a lot of space beyond the paper that was in the shot. I could have just cropped everything out and called it a day. But I kinda felt like that was the lame way out.
Since I was on the most recent version of Photoshop… why not see what it could do today?
Holy shit, it’s certainly a lot better.
Like as I was doing my first pass of edits for that sort of thing I was sending screenshots to the team being all “FUCK ME RUNNING LOOK WHAT THIS CAN DO NOW!” For some shots it actually even depicted the fog correctly. I did not expect that. Is it 100% perfect? No. I mean it does have to consider a lot of things in the frame. But going off of using it for this set I’ll have to remember it’s certainly a lot more usable than in the past.
There was one other thing I realized about this project. Spiderman is really symmetrical. Not only in terms of costume design but also how he’s shown to be ambidextrous. For some shots (mostly the action ones) they really were all taken from the same angle of sorts. But doing something like flipping an image horizontally would still certainly make sense. Pretty much most of the characters we’ve covered don’t offer that same flexibility. So it was interesting to pick up on that with this set.
Final Thoughts
ATXSpider was a joy to work with. As mentioned earlier he really gelled with us and certainly brought no obstacles to the way we work. We’d gladly work with him again.
As for me specifically I was happy to be in a studio setting again. Having so many aspects under my control allows me to explore things creatively and just lets me see what I can do. If you’ve followed us we’ve made a couple of attempts at outdoor sets. One was “okay”... and another was an outright fail. We’ll talk about that last one at some point.
With regards to the team and us working together in a studio setting… damn, I don’t think you could tell there was a 1.5+ year gap with us doing studio work again. All the thinking through shots, creative input, and giving each other shit felt like no time had passed. And when you fold in working with someone new and how we rolled with it effortlessly I was glad we could so easily get back in the groove.
Hopefully that can continue.
Postscript
Originally I had finished this article the day before this was published. But then we learned some backstory about the suit itself. And how this project had a positive impact on someone else.
ATXSpider actually received the suit from a friend of his who had the work commissioned from Alessio Lucchesi. They had owned it for a few years before they sent it along to ATXSpider to fix up and wear. When ATXSpider sent the original owner the photos…
None of us on the team expected THAT.
With the work we do we hope we’re providing inspiration to people in the community, whether it be through the costume creation process or the photography. And going by the comments from the first owner of the suit we’re heading in a positive direction.
