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

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

Who is Ayanami Rei?

Ayanami Rei, cosplayed by Anh (click for large image)

Across the whole anime universe(?) there are two characters that give me huge headache when it comes to photoshoot concept. They are Ayanami Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion and Goku from Dragon Ball. They are two very popular, almost mainstream, anime characters that everybody know even if they are not particularly into anime, comic or game. I've seen them so many times over the years that seeing them anywhere hardly trigger my creativity anymore.

I used to be a fan of Evangelion and I am planning to do an Evangelion shoot later this year/early next year so I really have to know the characters. So I read the manga, re-watched the 26-episodes TV series, the first movie "Death-and-Rebith", the classic "The End of Evangelion" and the new movie Evangelion 1.0 movie "You are (Not) Alone". Now I think I have a nice idea about most of the character but still... I have a hard time coming up with a concept for Rei.

I think the main difficulty is she is sooo well known that there is no ONE Rei. Every person have a different perception on this character. If you google for images of this character you'll notice throughout the years people had portrayed her as sad, happy, sexy, mean, friendly... etc. There is no one image of Rei that everybody agree upon.

Despite all those perceptions from others, I think Rei is a little creepy, to say the least. She is this very pale, emotionless girl almost always being seen wearing all these heavy bandages and yet we have never seen scars or even hints of wounds on her... really I mean, does it even make sense...?

It's almost as if she's not a human being.

Thanks to my friend Anh for being the awesome undoing-bandages-Rei! ^__^)

Cosplay Photoshoot - Perona, One Piece

Missing the cold in San Fransisco (photo credit: Raymond)

I just recently came back from the Bay Area and I'm now really missing the cold weather over there (especially after this last weekend of 100+ degree in San Diego...). With the helps of many friends I was able to execute 2 photoshoots during my short stay in the Bay. One of them is with Nadia as Perona from One Piece. Perona is a crazy gothic-lolita ghost princess with the ability to split into many ghosts in combat. Definitely a very unique and interesting character from the show.


Foggy location at foggy hours (photo credit: Raymond)

Shooting with this ghostly lolita princess reminded me of the good time last year with the Beautiful Nightmare shoot. Except Perona isn't really a "beautiful" type of character in the show XD. We went to a random mountain area near Cliff House to make use of the fog in San Fransisco.



We were doing the last setup of the day, we got no more fog at that time (photo credit: Raymond)

In the original series Perona has a "Wonder Garden". When I first heard of this "garden-of-the-ghost-princess" thingy I thought it would be so much fun shooting Perona in her garden! And the shoot did turn out to be A LOT OF FUN! Thanks so much Nadia for being our model and Raymond for assisting us with the shoot and transporting us there and taking so many photos of me XD!


Graffiti at the Princess's garden? I bet Perona is a big fan of art (photo credit: Raymond)


Crazy time! (photo credit: Raymond)

For the result of our Perona cosplay shoot please click here.