I’ve been photographing cosplayers at comic-book conventions for the last five or six years now as part of a long-term portrait project on the subject. I’ve always enjoyed photographing people who are passionate about what they do, and you’ll find few people with stronger opinions about any given subject than comic-book fans.
It’s hard standing out as a photographer when covering conventions. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting five or six of us, typically clustered around the entry and exit points. Most of the time it’s just “guys with cameras” hanging out, trying to get a few interesting frames for their own personal use, but you’ll also find working news photographers such as myself, bloggers, industry writers and professionals, and a whole galaxy of PR reps for the dozens of different publications in attendance.
Like I said, I love covering people who take their hobbies and passions to the next level – it’s hard not to. Cosplayers spend hundreds, or even thousands of dollars on their characters, putting in hours of work and research in order to get everything right. It’s something I’ve learned to respect, and if you’re going to ever shoot one of these, you should walk into the convention center with that on your mind. If you don’t show people the same levels of respect that you’d expect, you’re never going to get any kind of meaningful work done.
You really have to put some effort into having your photos stand out when you’re shooting in an environment like this. If you’re just walking around the convention floor shooting everything you see, you’re never going to get anything worth the effort.
It’s important to go in there with a plan. Know what you want to capture, and find out how to make it happen. For me, that begins with a couple of emails – talk with the PR reps for whatever organization is putting the convention forward. Getting credentialed will open up a lot of doors, but typically you’ll need somebody buying your shots in order to get them. At AwesomeCon down in D.C., I spoke with their PR rep and discussed exactly what I was looking for and what I needed to get it – in this case, space for a backdrop and lights. After getting everything cleared through them, I double checked this with the convention hall’s security. This may not always be necessary, but it doesn’t hurt. The last thing you want is to surprise security. Several photographers who weren’t credentialed attempted to put up backdrops, and were quickly removed.
Next came my site survey, a pre-check of the area. I actually took the first day of the convention just to walk around and get a lay of the land, looking for the best place to lay out my gear. I wanted an area with a lot of foot traffic, but slightly tucked away so as not to impede the flow of the crowd. I also didn’t want to gain too much attention from the other photographers. It’s been my experience that other shooters can sometimes swarm an area and make potential subjects uncomfortable. I’ve also had some less than professional shooters try to use my backdrop and lights when I’m not looking. To avoid this, I tend to block off my backdrop with light stands so there’s no real line-of-sight access to my subjects. It takes a lot of effort to carry all my gear to the site, set it up and pack it back home when I’m done. Not meaning to be rude, but if other people want to get similar shots, they can bring their own gear.
On that subject, let’s talk about equipment. For these shots I used a PXB portable backdrop frame with a gray muslin. The nice thing about the PXB is that it folds down into a bag roughly the size of a gym bag, but fully assembled it’s about 8’x8′ – more than enough for most portraits. To light each subject, I used a Flashpoint XPlor 600 with the extension head and a 38″ ParaPop softbox. I also brought the eVOLV 200 as a backup. Previous experience has taught me the dangers of going to a shoot without a backup camera and light. My lights were triggered by an R2 Transceiver, which allowed me to take advantage of the high speed sync on my lights. This is important, as it let me shoot with my aperture wide open.
As mentioned above, it’s incredibly important to approach possible subjects with respect. The better the costume, the more likely they’ve been approached by a ton of other photographers before getting to you. Sometimes they’re tired, and if they’ve had any bad experiences with unprofessional shooters, they may be leery of working with you. Respect is the word of the day, and if you don’t show it you may find yourself being asked to leave. Additionally, if you promise your subjects copies of the photos, follow up on that. They’re giving you their time, and it’s the least you can do to thank them.
