If you’re a cosplayer, I recommend reading the following post. It has some very useful info on how to improve your posing and tips on making photoshoots go more smoothly:

Sunday was a very short day for me at AX because we were being kicked out of our hotel room at noon. Theoretically, we could have left our luggage at the front desk for the day, but that was not practical for a number of reasons. The biggest was that since we had driven down, we had a lot of luggage with us. (We tend to pack a lot more for a road trip than a plane trip.) The other reason was that I’m reluctant to leave several thousand dollars worth of camera & computer equipment in the hotel’s care. The odds of having something happen is low, but why take unnecessary chances?

(Next year if we go to AX, we will stay until the following morning, eliminating the issue of trying to check out on the last day of con.)

Because of the tight time frame, Caroline stayed in the hotel room with Mai while I went over to the convention center for about 2 hours. First up was the dealers’ room, where I wanted to purchase a Photoshop plugin I had seen the day before. (Clever dealer, selling portrait-oriented PS plugins to cosplay photographers; I hadn’t seen that before.)

Next was my one and only shoot of the day — K Valentine cosplaying as Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. I decided to do something different, and do the whole shoot with only natural light and using my Sigma 50/1.4 lens. I think the results came out very well:

You can see the rest of the photos from the shoot at Spike Spiegel (K Valentine) from Cowboy Bebop.

On Saturday, I had taken a lot of hallway cosplay photos:

You can see the rest at Hallway Costumes (Saturday @Anime Expo 2009).

On Sunday, I had only a little time for hallway photos. I used the Sigma 50/1.4 and natural light only for all the hallway photos on Sunday, same as the photoshoot, so they look somewhat different than my normal hallway photos:

You can see the rest at Hallway Costumes (Sunday @Anime Expo 2009).

Shortly after my one and only shoot on Sunday, I rushed back to the hotel to finish packing. We were able to check out (almost) on time, and hit the road at 1pm. It was probably just as well that we left early; between the traffic and stops (for lunch, to take care of Mai, etc), we didn’t make it home until about 9pm.

Caroline and I had a great time at AX, and we’re hoping we’ll be able to attend in 2010.

I’m sorry it’s taking so long to get all the SacAnime and Dragon*Con photos posted. Here’s what happened:

1. Three days after I got back from SacAnime, I flew out to Atlanta for Dragon*Con. In those three days I (barely) was able to get one photoshoot done & posted.
2. I got back from Atlanta late Wednesday evening, 2 days after Dragon*Con was over.  My first priority was to get the SacAnime & DragonCon videos posted. They are currently all up on my site, and are mostly up on YouTube.
3. Saturday evening (3 days after arriving home), I caught a nasty cold, and wasn’t in any shape to work on photos.

As of yesterday (Wednesday), I’m feeling much better, and have resumed work on convention photos. My first priority is the SacAnime hallway & masquerade photos. After that, I will work on Dragon*Con hallway photos. Once all of those are done, I will work on SacAnime photo shoots.

Providing time estimates is difficult, but my hope is to have SacAnime hallway photos done this weekend, SacAnime masquerade photos done by next weekend (9/27), and the first batch of Dragon*Con hallway photos by 10/5 or so. Ideally, I’d have all the Dragon*Con photos and the SacAnime photoshoots wrapped up before the NorCal Fall Cosplay photoshoot on 10/17, but I’m not sure if that’s an attainable goal.

Again, I’m sorry it’s taking me so long to get the photos posted.

9/20 Update: SacAnime hallway photos are up! Still on target for SacAnime masquerade photos by 9/27.

9/26 Update: SacAnime Cosplay Fashion Show photos are up!

10/4 Update: SacAnime Masquerade photos are up! Now, on to the Dragon*Con photos…

10/11 Update: Thursday Dragon*Con 2009 photos are up!