Angel’s Camp is a beautiful small town about three hours east of San Jose, at the foot of the Sierra-Nevada mountains, and about one hour north of Yosemite. It has lots of open fields and small hills, and is near Calaveras Big Trees State Park, with its forest, river, and mountains. This combination of locales made it the perfect place for several cosplay photo shoots.

Day 0

Before the trip, there was much discussion about logistics and timing for the departure from San Jose, but in the end, things went fairly smoothly. We left from my house more or less on time in a rented minivan and my Camry. We hit some traffic on the way, but not as much as I had feared, and after a pit stop at A&W’s, we arrived at Angel’s Camp. After checking in and unloading the cars, a team was dispatched to the grocery store to get food for our stay. After that, we wanted to eat dinner. Because everything closes so early in small towns, we ended up getting fast food. A quick Avatar DVD marathon, and we went to sleep.

Day 1

After a delicious breakfast, we headed out for the Avatar: The Last Airbender shoot at Calaveras Big Trees State Park. This shoot had Azula (bekalou), Toph (blueskadoo), Katara (athena), Sokka (Keikishei), and Pien Dao (Michael).  We started out shooting by a river:

After shooting there for a while, we moved to a forest location, where I finally got a chance to try out my new AlienBees lighting equipment:

After that, we moved to another river location:

One quick stop at a scenic overlook:

and we headed back to Angel’s Camp, exhausted.

You can see the rest of my photos from this very fun shoot at http://photo.oscarc.net/Conventions-Cosplay/Photoshoots-2010/Avatar–The-Last-Airbender/13437821_YmKKp. You can also see Kazuha’s photos from this shoot at http://heulangel.smugmug.com/Conventions-Cosplay/Projects/Avatar-The-Last-Airbender/13331538_AS3S2. 

After a very filling dinner and a relaxing soak in the hot tub, it was back to photography.

First, I did a shoot of Keikishei as Son Goku:

You can see the rest of the photos from this shoot at http://photo.oscarc.net/Conventions-Cosplay/Photoshoots-2010/Son-Goku-Keikishei-Saiyuki/13387509_8NVCR.

After that, I did a shoot of Bekalou as Syaoran in the Dragon Illustration costume:

You can see the rest of the photos from this shoot at http://photo.oscarc.net/Conventions-Cosplay/Photoshoots-2010/Syaoran-Tsubasa-bekalou-Dragon/13400937_s723R.

One quick Avatar DVD marathon, and we all went to bed for the night.

To Be Continued in part 2…

This was my first year at WonderCon — I’d never been able to make it to WonderCon before. I’m glad I came! There were many great costumes, and I took a lot of photos.

I only had a few photoshoots set up ahead of time, so I tried something new for my hallway photography. I did a little of my usual hallway photography, wandering around and taking photos, but that didn’t work very well because of the crowds and because the venue is not conducive to mobile photography. Instead, for most of the convention I set up a mini-studio in an out-of-the-way (but not too out-of-the-way) location, and did minishoots with cosplayers who walked by. Several other photographers, including Mike from ConPix, set up shop nearby, and together we had an informal photography area going.  This ended up working out pretty well. The only disadvantage is that a lot of the shoots look similar, since they were shot in the same location with similar lighting.

The convention itself was very different from other conventions I’ve attended. Unlike most anime conventions, congoers for the most part seemed passive; they were here to be entertained and to shop. Unlike Dragon*Con and other fan-oriented SF/F conventions, WonderCon felt very industry oriented. The weirdest thing for me was that the hallways started getting quiet around 5pm. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun; just that if you attend expecting Dragon*Con West or Anime Expo North, you’re going to be disappointed.

I considered staying at a hotel, but ended up driving up from San Jose all three days. Parking was expensive, but not that hard to find, so it wasn’t too bad.

I’m really happy I attended this year. I spent time with many old friends and made several new ones, and I got a chance to shoot costumes very different from what I typically see at the other conventions I attend. I look forward to coming back next year!

Photos

I’m still working on processing the photos from WonderCon, but some of the shoots are finished and have been posted. Here are some of my favorite shots: (click on a photo for a larger view and for more photos from that shoot.)

More of my photos from WonderCon 2010 are at http://photo.oscarc.net/Conventions-Cosplay/WonderCon-2010.

Summary

High points:

• Lots of great costumes
• Very friendly attendees and staff
• Ability to set up a “mini-studio” for hallway photos instead of fighting crowds

Low points:

• Weather (it was raining one of the days)
• Backstage masquerade photo area
• Dealer room crowds

• I will be at WonderCon Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This will be my first year attending WonderCon, and I’m really looking forward to it.
• I will be at at Fanime Thursday evening, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and possibly Monday.

If you are interested in a free private photoshoot at WonderCon or Fanime, please email me (public@oscarc.net).  After your shoot, you will be able to download free web-sized, watermarked photos from my web site. Full-sized, unwatermarked photo downloads and prints are also available from my site.

You can see photos from shoots at previous conventions at http://photo.oscarc.net/Conventions-Cosplay/Photoshoots-2010.

Future Conventions

For various reasons, I will not be attending Anime Expo this year.  I am considering attending Pacific Media Expo, and will almost certainly be at ALA 2011, so I will be able to do shoots of SoCal cosplayers at those conventions.  My next convention after Fanime will be DragonCon in Atlanta,.GA.

Photo Processing Update

There are five more ALA photoshoots and one AOD photoshoot that have not yet been posted. I’m processing them as fast as possible and hope to have them up very soon. Thank you for your patience.

Apparently, the bloggers at Make The Photo get asked the same question a lot too, because they’ve put together a flowchart with the same type of questions I normally ask, along with their own recommendations for each category of photographer. Their flowchart is available at http://www.makethephoto.com/how-to-choose-a-digital-camera/.

I love this flow chart for several reasons:

1. It uses roughly the same questions as I use, in the same order, so it matches how I decide which camera to recommend.
2. It recommends the same cameras as I would in most situations.
3. The flow chart is regularly updated as new cameras are introduced. The last update was a few days ago, when they added the newly-announced Canon T2i.

In other words, if you use this flow chart, you’ll get the same recommendations as if you’d asked me directly, assuming I was able to keep up with every new camera announcement. From now on, when someone asks me for a camera recommendation, I’ll first point them to the flow chart, and, if they have any questions, I can answer them. Yay for the Internet!

Travel

Because the convention hotel is less than a mile from LAX, early on I made the decision to fly down instead of driving. I’ve always hated the long, boring drive down I-5, followed by fighting through LA traffic while navigating a maze of freeways, so flying seemed like a much better option. As the date got closer, though, I began to worry. The attempted Christmas-day attack and the sheer amount of camera/lighting gear I wanted to bring down started to worry me. Could I make it all fit? Would I spent hours trying to get through security?

When it came time to pack, I dragged out our biggest suitcase, and found that the lighting gear exactly fit in there, while leaving just enough extra space for clothes for me for four days. I also managed to (barely) fit all the camera gear I wanted into my rolling camera bag, including my brand-new Canon 70-200 f/4L IS USM lens that I had received a few days prior as a birthday present. After the issues flying to Dragon*Con, I remembered to pack items that security may flag (wrench, flash bracket, etc) into my checked suitcase.

Flying turned out to be pretty painless. All my bags went through x-ray once, I did not get pulled aside for a secondary screening, and nothing got stolen. My flight out to LAX was delayed, but so was the previous flight, so Southwest rebooked me without even being asked, and I ended up arriving earlier than my original flight. On the flight back, things went so smoothly I ended up waiting at the gate for two hours for my flight. This was my first time flying Southwest, and I was very happy with the experience.

Hotel

I took the free shuttle from LAX to the hotel. When I arrived at the hotel, check-in was painless, and then I took a look around. All the indoor areas had low, white-color ceilings, perfect for ceiling bounce flash. Ceiling bounce is my favorite way to soften my on-camera flash, and works great for hallway cosplay photography, but it’s frequently not an option. Fanime, for example, has 20+ foot high ceilings, making ceiling bounce impractical.

In addition to the lobby & convention areas, the hotel had a pool deck with lots of trees, a bridge, and a stream, and a separate patio area. This was great for shoots in the evenings after the photo room had closed.

Overall, the hotel was not too bad. It was a Marriott, which in my book ranks below Hyatt and Hilton, but I’ve seen so much worse. The staff were generally friendly and helpful (even though Hotel Security looked very nervous when surrounded by cosplayers). I did get pulled aside once the first night and asked by Security whether the convention had permission to be taking photos (I, of course, said yes), but that was very minor. The food in the hotel restaurants ranged from pretty good to excellent, but the service was awful. From getting orders wrong, to slow refills, to generally poor service, it was what I would expect at Denny’s, not at a business-class hotel. It was overpriced, too, but that’s expected for hotel restaurants.

Convention

I was extremely impressed with how well the convention was organized and run. I skipped the masquerade due to the long line & general exhaustion, so I can’t speak to that, but everything I did attend or participate in went well. There were some glitches, of course, but they were dealt with efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. Even registration, which is normally the bane of any convention, was very painless, and was immediately followed by ice cream for everyone who arrived Thursday evening, making for a great first impression.

It seems that other people were fairly happy too. At the end-of-convention “gripes”/how-can-we-do-better panel, a lot of valid suggestions were raised; however, they were, for the most part, relatively minor. I do not recall any complaints about major issues or disasters, and, somewhat unusually for this type of panel, there were a number of compliments.

Due to my photography schedule, I only attended one panel, on how not to run an Anime Convention. I was struck by how much running an Anime Convention is like running a small business/start-up. From the financial discipline, to the people management, to project management, the skills required are very similar. I think I ended up learning a bit on how to better run my business at that panel. The end of the panel also featured a hilarious story about cups, which I really regret not recording. Hopefully someone else who was recording will post the video soon.

Photography

Of course, what would a convention be without photography? I had several photography goals for ALA.

First, I wanted to exercise my new 70-200 lens as much as possible, to see if it works well for both hallway photography and shoots. I brought my 24-105, just in case it didn’t work out, but I never used it. In fact, since I didn’t go to the masquerade (and thus didn’t need my 100-300), the 70-200 was the only lens I used the entire convention. That did make some hallway large-group shot a bit awkward, but other than that I was incredibly happy with it. Wide-angle hallway shots generally do not look that great, and using this lens prevented me from making that mistake, forcibly improving my hallway photography.

Second, I wanted to test out my second PocketWizard receiver by doing two-flash shoots. With some help from Bekalou, Hellangel, and Blueskad00, I was able to accomplish this. I put the first flash in my softbox and put it on a light stand. I put the BigBounce on the second flash, and had one of my lighting assistants hold it in position. This worked out well because Bekalou was cosplaying different series from everyone else, so there was always someone not in the shot who could hold the second flash. The dual flash photos turned out beautifully; so much so it’s hard for me to look at the photos from my single-flash photoshoots. I look forward to more two-flash shoots in the future!

Finally, I wanted to get better at posing cosplayers. I think I did better than in the past — I provided more posing feedback and suggestions than at previous convention shoots — but I think I still have a lot of room to improve in this area.

ALA was also the first time I requested model releases from cosplayers in photoshoots. (I didn’t ask for model releases for hallway photos.) I chose a short, half-page model release, designed to be easy to read and not scary. I was pleasantly surprised that only one person expressed any serious concerns about it, and everyone signed it.

Wrap Up

I had a great time at the convention, in no small part due to the very fun people I sent time with. Many thanks to all the cosplayers who let me take their photos, and an especially big round of thanks to everyone who booked shoots with me ahead of time. Extra super giant thanks to Bekalou, Hellangel, Athena, and Blueskadoo, for holding flashes, helping me move my lighting gear, and generally helping out! I’m already looking forward to next year!

What it does have is a solid story about a high school kendo team and its members, with believable, three-dimensional characters. Even more surprising, these high school kids actually behave like real high school kids, not like spoiled brats or little adults. The team starts out the year with three relatively inexperienced second-year students and a bunch of first-year students. Over the course of the year, they get to know each other, become close friends, and greatly improve their kendo skills.

While Bambo Blade’s concept is not very original (sports animes being a dime a dozen), the execution is exceptionally well-done. The show does a great job of introducing the characters, and slowly showing you what makes them tick. Over the course of the show, each character has their own challenges to overcome, from the top-notch kendo player who learns how to handle defeat for the first time, to the team captain when she has to make a very difficult decision, to the coach, who wants to teach the kids and keep his job at the same time.

If you’re used to American-style sports movies (Mighty Ducks, et al), remember that this is a Japanese show. Hard work doesn’t always lead to victory, and the underdog usually loses. That’s real life, like it or not. Bamboo Blade’s theme is about team work, discipline, friendship, and handling defeat.

Even though the show has 26 episodes, to me, episode 24 was the last “real” one; 25 and 26 felt like tacked-on epilogues, with forced happy endings. Ignoring them, the rest of the show is an amazing trip with a great cast of characters. I highly recommend it!

Bamboo Blade is available for free (legal) streaming on YouTube and for purchase as two DVD collections of 13 episodes each. I watched the dubbed version, which was very well done. A brief comparison to the subtitles showed that the dubbing stuck pretty close to the original script.

Rating: 4.5/5.0 Shinai

Enligh Website: http://www.funimation.com/bambooblade/

Trailer:

1. I always shoot RAW. (Why? Disk space is cheap; ruining a great shot because of white balance issues is annoying.)
2. When I arrive home with a new batch of photos, I copy them all to two places: my NAS (to back up my unedited photos) and my photo editing workstation (into a to-be-edited folder).
3. My wife Caroline reviews the photos on the photo editing workstation using Canon’s Digital Photo Pro (DPP), marking the ones she does and doesn’t like.
4. I review Caroline’s selections and occasionally make a few changes to the selections. In addition to some differences in taste, I will occasionally toss out photos because I don’t think they are salvageable. I also add in  photos similar to some of the already-selected photos because I plan on cropping or editing them differently. I will also sometimes switch out a photo for a very similar looking one for technical reasons — slightly better focus or exposure, or less noise. Having said all that, about 95% of the photos I post are the ones Caroline selected.
5. I delete the rejected photos from my photo editing workstation. (Note that I still have all the unmodified photos on my NAS.)
6. I edit the selected photos in DPP, and then export them as top-quality JPEGs.
7. If needed, I edit the photos some more in Photoshop. (This is pretty rare.)
8. Caroline reviews the edited photos and provides feedback. If needed I work with her to retouch the photos she has concerns about. Usually a few more photos get deleted at this point.
9. I upload the photos to SmugMug.
10. I move the edited RAW and JPG files to an edited folder on my NAS. The NAS now has every photo I took straight off my camera, an edited RAW file for photos I’ve posted, and all the JPGs that I’ve posted.
11. The NAS is backed up regularly to two separate external drives, one of which is stored off-site.

(And before anyone says, “You should try Lightroom!”, I’ve tried Lightroom, and prefer DPP’s RAW processing.)

Looking at the proposed fix, the change will appear to be fool-proof. Perhaps a variable didn’t get initialized properly, or a resource had a typo, or someone forgot a break in a switch statement. You may say to yourself, “There’s no way something this simple could possibly break anything, so let’s do it!”

Before you agree to a claimed “zero-risk” change, read this true story from Raymond Chen at Microsoft. It demonstrates how every change has risk, sometimes in unusual and unexpected ways. During the middle of a project, there’s time to find and react to any unexpected side-effects from a change; at the end of a project, the side-effects may be serious enough that dealing with them will delay the software’s release. Do you want to be the one explaining to the CEO that the product can’t ship on time because a “zero-risk” cosmetic fix introduced a serious problem into the planned final build?

So avoid the temptation, and at the end of a project only fix bugs that actually prevent the product from shipping.

1. Friday was by far the biggest day for photos, so it’s taking longer than I expected
2. I spent a large part of the weekend migrating to a new computer that I assembled myself.

My previous system was a 4-year-old WinXP dual-core AMD system that was really showing its age. The new system is much spiffier:

• Intel Core i7-860 quad-core hyperthreaded processor
• 8GB RAM
• 160GB SSD for the OS
• 1TB high-speed SATA drive for data
• Blu-ray optical drive
• Radeon 5870 graphics card
• 750W power supply
• Intel DP55SB motherboard
• Antec Mini P180 case
• Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Not surprisingly, the new system is very fast. Operations that took a second or two on the old system are now instananeous. Launching Photoshop CS4 used to be slow enough to grab a coffee; now it takes 3 seconds. This massive speed increase is making a big difference in my ability to edit photos (and Caroline’s ability to select photos) efficiently, so I’m hoping I will be able to get photos out quicker in the future. (When you’re going through 1000 photos, even one or two seconds per photo saved adds up quickly.)