I always love finding new people to work with... especially those who are also into one of my favorite anime series: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Miad. I met Cezahn Cosplay at San Japan earlier this year and we've been bouncing idea back and forth for a bit now. This was the first one we were able to bring people together for a shoot and everyone loves how the pics came out.
Another one of our cute and goofy shoot ideas. The Sailor Senshi getting together to decorate Christmas cookies and trade presents. Allybelle Cosplay (Minako Aino/Sailor Venus), Mermaid Child (Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon), and Taco's Treasures (Chibausa Tsukino/Sailor Chibi Moon) and I shot this right after our Christmas Love Live session. This time around we were joined by Lorelei from Colony Drop Cosplay (Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury).
Allybelle and Rob had been working for a while to put this one together and we were finally able to pull it off. Tacocat Cosplay knew of a place that could work well for this version of Zelda and it was perfect. There were spots that worked so well with the setting sun and made for some amazing pictures.
This shoot was a great example of things coming together at the right time. I was trying to put together a shoot at Texas Gamers Lounge when I saw a post from Lilfaun Cosplay with some initial pics of her Cammy and how she wanted to do a shoot in an arcade. I had been wanting to work with her for a while so for things to come together like this was amazing.
There were a few new things I wanted to try with this shoot. First off was using some of the new Godox lighting gear. Not long before this shoot they had added FujiFilm support to their R2 wireless system. At first I had picked up a couple of their TT350F speedlites along with the X1TF trigger. While the system itself worked well I was a bit less than thrilled with the performance. Not long after that I read up on the AD200s. I ordered one to try out... and fell in love with it. So I quickly ordered another one.
Another thing I wanted to try out here was the Phottix Luna Folding Beauty Dish. I had been been researching light modifiers to change up things from just using either shoot through or reflective umbrellas. And there was something about beauty dishes I really liked. But I also wanted something that was a bit more portable. For some of these pics it worked really well (especially some of the close up shots). Though for others the shallow shape of the dish allowed a bit more light to spread then I may have liked at least for this particular project. Even though I had many lighting options at my disposal we only used one AD200 with the Phottix Luna dish.
There was a stroke of luck that allowed me to pull off one of my favorite shots. I got there to the venue about 45 minutes before Lilfaun would arrive to hang with Imran and his team (and to arm them with Red Bull and coffee since it was rather early for them on a Saturday morning), walk through the place, get some ideas on how to shoot, etc.
Randomly Imran had a completely empty Street Fighter 2 cabinet that still had it's control panel. I saw it, looked at him, and said "I want to use THAT."
So we set it up in a good place that would look like it would be in a natural spot relative to the rest of the cabinets. I set up the Phottix Luna about five or six feet away from Lilfaun... but this time around instead of going angle down like I had for some frames I decided I wanted to position straight on to her face. I actually got inside of the cab to take some shots... and snapped probably one of my favorite photos (it's the header photo to this post). One of my photographer friends saw this pic and said "Wow, that looks 90's as fuck."
Thanks to Imran for allowing us to come in and use the arcade for this shoot. Especially for putting up with me being a photographer and moving cabinets around for good shots. TGL is an awesome gaming venue and his game selection is seriously legit. TGL is not fully open yet but they are running preview weekends and tournaments to give the public a taste of what the place is like. Keep an eye on their page for upcoming events.
Not long ago I made an attempt to get back into a hobby I used to love: arcade game collecting. What started this was how a business decided to offload a bunch of arcade games including some Japanese candy cabs. Since I love SHMUPs playing them on a proper cab is the best way to enjoy them. So I picked up two of them. Not long after that a co-worker wanted to sell off some games as he didn't want to move all of them part way across the country. So to help him out (one of them being a Donkey Kong I was interested in restoring) I bought some off of him.
But then I discovered something: I couldn't get them to my apartment because of the way the stairs are designed. Yay.
So I started renting a storage unit and put them there. With the thought that I could eventually get in a place where I could actually have them in my home.
Recently I was cleaning up my place and after a bit I thought to myself "Why the hell do I have all this stuff?" Not like it was a lot of stuff like 'Oh I could use this later'. My mother was really bad about that so I made a point years ago to NOT do that. But there were still things that were just sitting there untouched that I would always think I'd get back to at some point. A bunch of really obscure records that I wanted to digitize. A console video game collection that I would set aside time to play. Hardware to create chiptunes on. And with that the arcade games I'd get somewhere and restore.
There would always be these reminders of things I "wanted" to do. And after some time it got to be distracting. Walk through my place to get to the kitchen to grab a drink and I'd see the bookcase of video games. I'd be in my bedroom packing up gear for a shoot and I'd see the records sitting in my closet.
That's when I realized that they were a distraction... and they would keep me from focusing on what I want to do with photography.
So I knew I should no longer keep this stuff around.
After further reflection I realized this also extended to my online life as well. Over the years I've become a big part of some online communities. And some of them very much instrumental in helping me getting to where I am today. But much like real life they served a similar function: they were things I "could" be doing.
In some instances it sucks that I needed to make these moves. I'll still be supporting them in certain ways through my work. Plus I'll see them at various events across the country. So it's not a complete abandonment. It's still weird to take a step back from things that were integral to me developing as a photographer and as a person.
But sometimes in order to move forward you have to leave some things behind.
And that's okay.
I'm still going to help move as many people forward as I can.
This was one of the more involved shoots I've been a part of. When Allybelle Cosplay and I were first discussing ideas for shooting Snow Halation Eli we figured out fairly quickly that doing this one outside was a non-starter. Given that it's summer this version of Eli wouldn't make sense with all of the greenery around. Plus when it's summer in Texas... yeah, would prefer to avoid that.
So when we got to thinking about it... why not do some things similar to the video? Since neither one of us have an idol label's budget we went for something evocative of the design. And I think it worked well here.
Thanks to Justin Mathias for assisting on this one.
