Tim Gunn on Superheros' style xD

Just came across these videos online~ So awesome really gotta share with you guys xD

Part I:


Part II:

IMO - Paid Photoshoot

Fellow photographer Beethy recently started a discussion on photoshoot-and-charging on his journal. "Should photographers charge for their service" is like one of the most frequently discussed/argued topics in the cosplay community. If you are a professional photographer unfamiliar with the cosplay scene you will be amazed by how unlikely cosplayers are willing to pay for your service.


The original discussion posted on Beethy's blog: link

People have all sort of reasons why photoshoots should be free. We have photographers aiming only to build their portfolio and/or practice their skill and thus feel bad charging; we have cosplayers even suggesting that photographers should be the ones paying because cosplayers are spending lots of time on their costumes and they are also the one modeling for the photographers; we also have people who think charging for cosplay shoots will eventually turn the cosplay circle into a commercial hellhole where everything is about $$$.

Personally I am not against photographers charging for their service. It make perfect sense to me for an artist to get paid for the time, professionalism and expertise they put in on a project. Just like cosplayers getting paid on commissioned costumes/accessories. Photographers are free to simply put up a price and start charging for their service, be it $10/hr, $100/hr, $1000/hr, etc etc...

However, the thing is most cosplayers don't have a budge for photoshoots and thus won't be willing to spend money on photography service. Not so much because they don't have the money but because most of them treat cosplaying as a hobby and fancy photographs is not really necessary for them to enjoy a good time.

I think photographers shouldn't expect *every* cosplayers to pay for your service. Just like you don't bust into a wedding, take pictures and demand the couples to pay you. There are people who are willing to pay for excellent photographs. However I do think a different marketing strategy/business model should be used due to the lower demand for photography service in the cosplay community...

Saboten-Con 2010

Toiea as Lavi from D.Grey-Man

Just come back from Saboten-con in Arizona this past weekend. It was my first time traveling to an AZ con and it was a really wonderful experience. Apparently it's one of the larger local conventions so there were a lot of AZ cosplayers attending. The hotel was a super nice resort and it was all sunny and warm so it totally put me in vacation mood all weekend. xD


GreyFinch as Casimiro from HiNaBn

Walked around the convention a couple times and attended the Hanna's not a Boy's Name gathering on Saturday meeting a group of fellow Hanna fans. Fun time!! Surprisingly there is quite some Hanna cosplayers at Saboten this year. This web comic is seriously getting popular fast :D

So much fun hanging out w. some of my favorite AZ friends and meeting some new ones~~ Can't wait to check out some more AZ cons in the future~~ :-)

Oh yea and now my 2010 convention count is 6!

Self Reminder: At-Con photo shoot

Sac Anime was this weekend and it was pretty much the last con of summer 2010 in California. So far I've been to 5 conventions this year and thanks to that I got the opportunity to shoot at various convention locations. Some shoots went well and some didn't. After reviewing those failed shoots I realized one very important thing that I overlooked all these time.

Here is a screen shot of a poll from my DA:



The most important thing I (or any photog) have to keep in mind is we are at a convention. People are rushing from here to there so we should pay extra attention on how long a shoot might take. Don't be over ambitious trying to finish three 2-hours shoots in 1 day or spending 4 hours for one shoot.

At-con photo-shoots have a totally different set of rules.

Just another self-reminder. :)

Fanime 2010

We have hotel lobby w. classy setting right next to the convention center

Fanime is still my most favorite convention in California. I was so happy to attend this convention 3 years in a row. It has gotta a lot bigger compared to 2007 but still at least as awesome as before! :)


Stairs, tree and grass (aka. park) 3 blocks away from the convention center

There are so many places available for shooting. The variation is really great. You would have no problem looking for location for various series. Also, unlike LA, most of the locations doesn't requires any special photography permission to shoot. Making it much easier for photographers and cosplayers.


Random bikes at the convention center

This year I didn't setup any photo shoot but instead I was walking around the convention center getting photographs here and there. It was really fun hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones. I really enjoy being so relaxed at con, I guess I'm gonna do this more often from now on :)


Indoor at the convention center

All images (hi-res) can be found on my homepage and my DeviantArt. Anime Expo is in 10 days... I can hardly wait for the fun time ahead!! :D :D

Remarkable ACG Photographers

What Frank West was planning to do with a camera in this situation is beyond me

If you are a fan of anime, comic or game I'm sure you already noticed there are quite a lot of photographers in various ACG series. In a twisted sense, they are much like photographers in real life in which they all carry their equipments around everywhere they go and each have their own skill-level and specialties. However, the biggest different is that in the ACG world most of these "photographers" used their camera for everything but photo taking...

Here is a list of remarkable ACG photographers. You might consider them to be as big as Nigrel Barker in the ACG world. xD

Aya Shameimaru - Creepy Photographer

Aya uses a wide range of gears. Including Leica rangefinder, p-and-s, dSLR, SLR... anything

Aya is one of the many characters from the famous non-commercial gaming series Touhou Project. She is the main journalist of her own newspapers Bunbunmaru Newspaper and is always busy collecting material for her articles. She has a habit of taking embarrassing or risque photos of other characters for her newspaper and she is often being seen harassing her assistant Momiji Inubashiri. Definitely one of the most infamous creepy photographers in the ACG world.

Momiji is often a victim of Aya's harassment.

Frank West - Super Hero Photographer

Frank's favorite gear is probably baseball bat, or guns or anything that kill zombies

Frank West told everyone not to mess with an ACG photographer in the epic Capcom action game Dead Rising. In the game he was forced to fight his way out of a zombie-infested mall with anything he picked up in there. Obviously being artistic with his photography didn't quite make it to his priority list and thus his camera is more like a fancy necklace than a... camera. After playing for a while I really think he should consider a career change. He could be an AMAZING underground fighter I'm sure. XD

Frank will be appearing in Marvel vs. Capcom III next year. This time bringing his game to the next level by fighting against various superheros from Marvel.


Heroines from Fatal Frame - Drama Queens

Camera Obscura is the gear of choice in the Fatal Frame series

There is a lot of very dramatic events going on with Miku Hinasaki, Mayu/Mio Amakura and Rei Kurosawa from the Fatal Frame series. Among the 4 of them Rei is an award-winning freelance photographer while Miku is a photography assistant (Fatal Frame III). However, unlike most freelance photographers in the US they don't get to deal with style and clients much during their work hours but instead they deal with ghosts, exorcism, and dark Shinto rituals on a day-to-day basis. Definitely not an easy career over there.

Can't wait to try Fatal Frame IV on Wii.

99% of Rei's tasks involved photographing ghost from various haunted mansions. Quite different from what we do in California.


Jiro Tomitake - Victim Photographer

Gear of choice for Jiro is his SLR. He is going everywhere with it.

Jiro Tomitake is quite an unfortunate photographer as he got killed so many times in the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni series. For a second there he might even reminded you of Kenny Mccormick from SouthPark except his death is usually less comical. He is a freelance photographer who travel to the Hinamizawa town around 3 times a year for his work but unfortunately usually ended up getting killed there.

He specialized in bird photography... although we didn't really get to see any of his works from the series.

IMO - SouthPark

(image source: WarriorPoint)

A few years ago I thought all American cartoons are for kids and I'd introduce people to Japanese animes just because they are less "kiddy"...

Recently I realized I've been totally wrong all these time... South Park for one is definitely not for kids xD

The theme and story-telling of this show is so different from anime in general. The show is always about the current events happening in the society. Criticism of countries' politics, religions and many other touchy subjects are usual topics of the show. Also, no matter what the topic was the four kids would still swear non-stop in most episodes (except maybe Kenny since we can't really tell what he is saying most of the time xD) The script are nicely written so most of the time you'd get a good laugh from it rather than be pissed/offended by the show.

I'd recommend this show to everyone (18+ I mean). If you are an anime fan and need a break from it this is definitely the show to checkout! I am sure you are gonna be addicted :D

... IMO this show really need more love from the cosplay circle. It'll be AWESOME :D

All episodes available on southparkstudio.com

Top 10 series in the 2010 cosplay scene - 2

At least the Europe's Debt Crisis doesn't have much to do with this one (Google Image)

Warning: nerdy entry... continue from previous post

Reborn! (aka. Katekyo Hitman Reborn)

Reborn! all-stars (image source: Google Image)

Info: wiki
Reborn has been a very popular shonen series in the cosplay scene for quite a while. The chracter design are simple and clean making them relatively easier to cosplay. The list of character growth as the series proceed and both the anime, manga and light novel are still ongoing meaning we'll be sure to see more and more cosplays from this series in 2010.

Zone-00

Zone-00 main cast (image source: Gaia Online)

Info: wiki
If you frequent Japanese cosplay sites such as Cure I'm sure you already heard of this series before. This manga has been quite popular in the Japanese cosplay scene since 2 years ago and we started seeing more and more people cosplaying from this series in Taiwanese conventions last year.This year in Anime LA and AOD we started seeing our very own Zone-00 cosplay group. There is still no news about an animation series yet but it's already so popular among the ACG circle. I'm sure we'll see a lot of people cosplaying from this series this year.

Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII in game scene (Image source: PSPSPS)

Info: wiki
We started seeing cosplays from FF-XIII in the US cosplay scene since... 2007. As the release date drew near we kept seeing more and more people cosplaying characters from the series. As we (fans) all know, the English version of the game is scheduled to be released on March 9th this year and it's only logical to expect even more fans cosplaying from this series. As always the designers in Square Enix did an awesome job in the costume designs. I can hardly wait to see more Final Fantasy cosplayers walking around convention centers everywhere.

Avatar the last Airbender | Alice | Avatar

Tim Burton's Alice in wonderland (Image source: Manny the Movie Guy)

Info: wiki | wiki | wiki
Cosplay from movies is more popular in some conventions than the others. WonderCon and San Diego Comic Con are two of the bigger conventions where movie-cosplay is more popular. Avatar made a great impact early this year and we can definitely expect seeing cosplays from this movie. Avatar the last Airbender and Alice are another two highly anticipated series to be released some time this year. Anyway C'mon guys these are movies, 3 hours at most... check them out before going to these cons would you? XD

Katanagatari | Baka to Test to Shōkanjū

 
Katanagatari (Image source: Brianandrew)

Info: wiki | wiki
New series are like penny stocks (lol). It's hard to tell how big are they gonna get but for sure some fans will be attracted to these two very colorful series and decide to cosplay from them this year. They are both still airing in Japan this season and they are really fun to check out. Definitely look forward to seeing them at cons.


We will get more pointers from CWT24 in 2 weeks. By then we'll have a much better idea on which series to "invest" in for the convention season this year! Good luck people. Have fun shooting in various 2010 conventions!  XD

...darn I'm nerdy... lol

Top 10 series in the 2010 cosplay scene - 1

Cosplay photography is a serious business (image source: Getty images)

So all of us photographers who like to shoot at anime conventions know that the cosplay scene is fast and constantly changing like Wall Street. If we invest our time researching the wrong series we'll ended up losing EVERYTHING in the upcoming convention season. Because of that, insider information and a little prediction is very important for what we do.

Since I'm feeling nerdy bored let me list my personal guess on 2010 most popular stocks series in the cosplay circle. I spited up the entry into 2 to hopefully make it easier to read :D

Vocaloid

Members of the Vocaloid family (image source: komica)

Info: wiki
The Vocaloid family were already HUGE in many Asian and US conventions last year. We can expect to see them being even more active this year with the addition of new characters, songs and the much anticipated Black Rock Shooter anime project which is scheduled to air this Spring. Magnet, Akuno Musume, Hagane and Black Rock Shooter are some of the most popular series among the cosplay circle. Definitely check them out!

Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji)

Sebastian and Ciel from Black Butler (image source: komica)

Info: wiki
Black Butler was already a "major player" in 2009. It was not unusual to run into 10 Ciel and 8 Sebastian in a convention. The series have extremely remarkable costume designs and it definitely got the attention of many cosplayers worldwide. The more recent addition of the Noah's Ark Circus pushed the design to the next level and now everyone in the series seems to wear Haute couture wherever they go. I think we can definitely expect to see more Black Butler cosplay this year.

Macross Frontier

Movie poster of the Macross Frontier movie "The False Diva" (image source: komica)

Info: wiki
Macross Frontier was a big hit back in 08 and 2009. The amazing storyline and characters development of this series made it a very popular choice among cosplayers. Although the TV series ended in 2008 the manga is still going on and from what we saw in ALA and AOD it is clear that cosplayers are still very excited about cosplaying characters from the series. I'd expect the upcoming movie scheduled to release in Japan this Fall would keep the momentum going for 2010.

K-On

The 4 main girls in their concert outfits (image source: komica)

Info: wiki
K-On was another commercial success of Kyoto Animation, the production company of Full Metal Panic, Lucky Star and Haruhi. The story was about these 4 girls of a really laid back after-school music club. Some of the outfits in the show are gorgeous, unfortunately they were only being showcased in 1 or 2 episodes when the main characters performed in "concerts". Despite the lack of costumes we still saw plenty of people cosplaying from the series in 2009 and with the airing of a 2nd season in April I'd look forward to seeing more and more cosplay from this series.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Mari Illustrious Makinami, new character of the Evangelion series (image source: komica)

Info: wiki
It might sound weird to expect a series from 1995 to come back 15 years later. Believe it or not, Evangelion is getting BIG once again thanks to the newly released animation movies. Two of the 4 episodes of the new movie series has already been released and the new characters and storyline once again attracted lots of fans and cosplayers. The last two movies is supposed to introduce us a brand new ending of Evangelion and they will come out in Summer and Winter this year. Prepare to see more Rei and Asuka running around the convention centers this year.

(... continue in Part II)

AOD 2010

I still kinda remember how I told myself in 2009 to cut back on conventions (to save up for food) but I guess it's just not that easy... lol


"Genma Shizume, Darker than Black". Cosplayed by: Muze

So after a relatively last minute decision of attending Anime LA last month, my fellow soCal friends and I decided (again, last minute) to drive all the way to San Francisco to attend Animation on Display. It is a relatively smaller conventions that all of us have heard of but none of us have ever attended before. It was a nice experience to have a convention in such a busy neighborhood (SF Japan Town) where we have access to nice restaurants, grocery stores and pretty much everything in San Francisco. The convention hotel was a bit small, however, I was quite surprised by the variety of locations available for shooting. The gorgeous Japan Town made a wonderful backdrop for shooting various anime costumes.

Although I didn't take many pictures it was still a lot of fun hanging out with friends and checking out all these random restaurants in San Fransisco. I can hardly wait for more fun time this year. I'm sure it's gonna be awesome! :)

Wandering around J-Town with "brown bags" (aka.. beer) in hand (image source: Minh Soi)

Nice to Meet You, Home - 2

You would think this shot was taken by Terry Richardson but actually it was from Dad... many years ago XD

It is always nice to see my sister Ruby. She has been in Hong Kong all these years and she knows all the nice places to shop, eat and party. She is currently in her final year of college and unfortunately November was one of her busiest months with tons of tests, exams and projects. But luckily we still got enough time to hangout and took some photographs.

We took all our shots at home, right before Ruby run to school for her exams. Here is the (mock) setup for one of the 3 compositions:


We used our living room for one of the setup. (Mom was rushing XD)

The mini-shoot was a lot of fun... although now I can only remember the super delicious Hai-Nan chicken rice after the shoot that afternoon lol. I look forward to hanging out with Ruby again the next time I return to Hong Kong :)

For the result of this mini-shoot, please check out my website andyrakphoto.com

Nice to Meet You, Home - 1

The name of this restaurant described the quality of Chinese food in Hong Kong. XD

Eat, Eat, Eat, Eat...

That are tons of great food in Hong Kong. You can buy materials from local markets and cook it yourself or you can go to pretty much any restaurant and enjoy really high quality cooking. Once you have you first meal in Hong Kong you'll LOVE the city (and no don't go to McDonald's) XD


Shanghai cuisine is very popular in Hong Kong. You can find them anywhere (there are at least 3 restaurants serving Shanghai cuisine near my house)

There are a couple main differences between Chinese food in Asia and Chinese food in the United States. Firstly, fresh meats (aka. live animals) are available in local markets. Chicken and fish (and most seafood) are still alive in the market. Butchers kill them for you once you purchase the item. Secondly, there are many chefs from main land China and Taiwan who have been cooking Chinese food for generations and have all these secret recipes. This magically make the food taste good :D


Not sure what's the name of this type of fish.. Fresh from the market

Thirdly, most restaurants use a lot more oil in cooking than in the US. A single serving of beef-fry-noodle might contains 10+ tbsp of oil. And that, although make the foods taste better, might mess up your stomach if you are not used to it.


Herbs and Chinese medicines are added to many type of soups (to aid digestion, help your skin, etc etc...)

My stomach started complaining on the 3nd day of my trip thanks to the "beef-fry-noodle" and my sudden 4-meals-a-day diet. I guess it's never good to over-do things haha. The doctor told me to not eat "greasy, cold, raw and/or too much" food and I lol'd cause I did them all during the first 3 days of my trip! Fortunately it only took me two days to recover and it didn't affect my trip much.


Dried sea horses and sea dragons... probably soup material?

That's it for now about food in Hong Kong. Definitely worth a try if you are a fan of Chinese food!

Nice to Meet You, Home - 0

My 1 year old nephew Joshua from the Bay Area who keep calling me grandpa...

After 2 weeks of telecommuting from the Bay Area tomorrow is finally the first day of my Hong Kong trip. I haven't been back home for 3 years and I'm sure a lot have changed since my last visit. The temperature is still very warm (around 83 degree) over there so I guess it'll be like summer again.

Aside from shopping and visiting friends and family, I'll probably check out a local cosplay event called HKU cosplay party during my short stay in Hong Kong. Can't wait for some cosplay-culture-shock XD


The amount of HK money I'll bring with me to the airport (~ $87.73 USD)

Hong Kong Trip

(image source: National Geographic)

Haven't been back home for 3 years... Finally got a chance to go to Hong Kong for a visit next week.

I look forward to really living the life of a HK ppl for 2 weeks. Can't wait to bring back stories and photographs of this amazing city! ^__^)

Photoshoot - Dating 101

My friend Tyson is thinking of doing some freelance modeling. We decided to work together to pull out a portfolio for him to show his potential clients. Instead of starting off with fashion photographs we decided to do something fun/silly in our first shoot.

Tyson has this ultimate gorgeous Lexus IS 300 he got a while ago. When I first saw it I knew I have to somehow incorporate it in every single photo of this photo shoot. XD


Billy and I with the 3 awesome models (Leilany, Tyson, IS 300)

The best part of a casual shoot like this is we both got to play around with idea, props and location without worrying too much about brand images, wardrobe and styling. It is also a nice way to develop our teamwork.

Thanks a lot Leilany for being the "mystery date",  Tyson for being our awesome model and Billy for assisting with lighting! You can view all the 5-setups here: Dating 101

Fashion Brands by Mark Tungate

Awesome book by Mark Tungate

Picked up this book at a local bookstore a couple weeks ago. Author Mark Tungate did a wonderful job introducing us to the world of fashion. He first covered briefly on the history of fashion branding from Worth and Bobergh in 1858 to some of the top fashion brands nowadays including LV, Gucci and Chanels. Then he went ahead and talked about the business trend in the fashion industry, as well as discussing strategies some brands and designers used in selling their products. Being a "fashion outsider", Mark was able to cover all these topics in a way that is easy for everyone to understand.

I especially love how this book focused mainly on the business side of fashion. Fashion is a really tricky business. As Mark mentioned in this book "Fashion is based on creating a need where ,in reality, there is none" and because of that, marketing pretty much determine the success or failure of a brand. Media has always been the tool of choice in marketing fashion brands. Understanding the business side of fashion helps me understand fashion photography better. I highly recommend this book to my fellow photographers and anyone who is interested in the fashion industry :)

Mega64 Video

(img source: komica)

The above image is pretty much my impression on one of the funny videos from Mega64. The team from this well-known gaming blog/forum occasionally film themselves dressing up (and acting as) video game character in public places. Usually making people annoyed and sometimes getting themselves arrested. Other than just this group of (silly) gaming fans sometimes you might even see famous guests such as Hideo Kojima in their videos. From the couple of videos I saw it seems like San Diego is one of their favorite cities to film their video. ^^;;

While dressing up in costume and disturbing people in public is not what "cosplay" is about (no, not at all), you might still find some of their video funny if you are a gaming/costuming fan. I personally found these video a little disturbing because this is exactly the type of things that give ACG* fans a bad reputation. Oh well, maybe it's just me XDD
*Anime, Comic, Game


RE4 merchant is not quite a good career in San Diego (especially near Costco XD)


If you just want a laugh and/or just wanna see how crazy gaming fans can get I'd recommend checking out some of their videos. You can find some of their videos on their YouTube channel: here.

Photographer - the Sartorialist

(image source: http://morningcup.wordpress.com)

Couple names always come up when we talk about fashion photography - Nigel Barker, Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel, etc... The wonderful works from these world famous fashion photographers defined the look of fashion photographs in our time. Teaming up with world-class models, makeup artists and fashion designers they portrayed an extremely glamorous world of fashion that is more a fantasy than reality. Their extremely creative take of fashion photography also gives some of us an impression that fashion photographs have to be "loud" in order to be noticed by the general public.

Truth is, fashion doesn't have to mean loud. Scott Schuman, aka. the Sartorialist, takes a totally different approach in fashion photography. Instead of following the big trend of creating an unreachable fashion fantasy he decided to shoot most of his fashion work on the street with "real people" he saw everyday. As a photographer who really know fashion, he knows what is "IN" and he captures what is really attractive to the viewers. His back-to-basic approach put *fashion and style* as the main focus of his image which is sometimes not the case in today's fashion photography.


The Sartorialist Book (image source: http://www.selectism.com)

Being listed as one of Time magazine's top 100 design influencers, Schuman is now a frequent contributor of GQ Magazine. This year he published a book with some of his favorite images. His signature street-style photo made this book a really great reference of today's fashion. If you are a fan of fashion I'm sure you'll find the images in this book very inspiring. ^___^)

The Sartorialist official site - http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

Underwater Photography

I was discussing with my buddy Muze and Tony the other day about underwater photography. Muze was studying the possibility of bringing cosplay photography underwater and all of us suggested a favorite underwater photographer. Here are the 3 awesome photographers we were looking at that day:

Elena Kalis - elenakalisphoto.com/

(image source: www.preik.no)

Alix Malka - alixmalka.com

(image source: look.thecubie.com)


Zena Holloway - zenaholloway.com/zena.html

(image source: musaranias.files.wordpress.com)

They are really great photographers! I really enjoy seeing how they each handle underwater photography with their own unique execution/vision. Loving their works BIG TIME!!

Can't wait to try out underwater photography some day ^__^)

18+ Anime Convention?

This poster pretty much summed up yoai-con... not really XD (image source: komica)

If you are not too familiar with the cosplay circle you might be surprised to learn that there are actually 18+ anime conventions out there. Yaoi-Con which takes place in San Mateo, CA on the October 30 - November 1, 2009 is one of these conventions. The theme of this unique convention is "yaoi"*. It is an anime convention for "fans with an interest in yaoi-related anime, manga, and other aspects of Asian culture." (wikipedia)

*Yaoi(やおい) is a popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by female authors (wikipedia)

Due to the adult nature of this convention, the registration process of Yaoi-Con is a little different from your usual anime conventions. Other than the regular online form and payment, pre-registration requires an extra mailing of a photocopy of your proof of age. At-con registration/badge pickup also requires a mandatory picture ID check. You will be given a bracelet upon getting your badge and you are supposed to wear this bracelet throughout the entire 3-days convention. In case you lost your bracelet you'll have to pay a rate of $60 to have it replaced.


A Ulquiorra cosplayer from Yaoi-Con 2007. Highlighted is the bracelet.

Although the theme of this con might not be something you are interested in, however, IMO this is one of the best conventions in CA for photographing cosplayers. The location is extremely photography-friendly. With some pretty nice indoor and outdoor locations to work with (if you are not planning to get away from the con-center). It is also a great chance to see costumes from series that are totally unheard of (assuming you are not a Yaoi-fan). Overall it is a totally different experience from attending bigger cons such as Anime Expo and SDCC.

For more information about this convention check out the official website: here
Location of the con: Marriott San Mateo-San Francisco Airport