Mermaid Child is apparently good at making random purchases that lead to us to do a photoshoot.
A while back she made yet another wig purchase just because she like the look of it. If Moon Moon wants it, she gets it. You don't ask questions.
Then the day before San Japan was to start her, Tacocat, and Allybelle were hanging out at the Rivercenter Mall and stopped at Hot Topic. They had Pusheen swimsuit pieces that were on clearance. Mermaid Child is a huge fan of Pusheen. Like seriously. I've seen her collection. It's nuts. Allybelle mentioned it would look good on her... but only one piece came in her size. So she would have to order the other piece online. Which would spawn own of the best MTA in-jokes:
Mermaid Child: Hopefully the bottoms will get to me quickly
Me: ...sounds like something you'd hear in a gay night club.
So yeah... lots of references to that leading up to this shoot.
To which she asked if I'd be interested in doing a shoot with that swimsuit and the wig. Of which I was interested in doing.
There was actually quite a bit of discussion prior to us working on this. If you pay attention to the cosplay community there's quite a few people out there doing 'lewd' content. Which we're just not interested in doing. Not that we want people to stop doing it... it's just not us.
Now as an artist and photographer I'm not opposed to doing stuff that could be considered 'sexy'. But if I'm going to do anything along those lines at a minimum I want to present things in my own way. More importantly I want to pull out the personality out of whoever is in front of the lens. As a straight male I get there's some certain expectations within that area... but if I'm working with someone who has personality and I can help them show that off... now that is sexy to me. And I think that makes for a better representation of everyone involved.
Mermaid Child and I discussed these points and she was completely on board.
I think we achieved that with this photo shoot. There's a few bits that could be improved image wise (namely with using strobes outdoors). But we really captured Mermaid Child being herself. And that's exactly what I wanted to do.
