Photography

Photo Shoot at the Bosque

To kick off this holiday weekend I ended up doing a photo shoot. This time it was with a friend of mine who goes buy the name of Kenya who I’ve done work with in the past, specifically on the cosplay side but this time we ended up doing a more casual kind of shoot at the bosque down in Albuquerque.

Kenya Chan on a log in the Albuquerque Bosque

I’ve used the Bosque before on several occasions in the past specifically for the nature element of it which is a nice change of scenery from the often gritty city environments you find around albuquerque. Don’t get me wrong I like gritty but you got to change it up every once in a while. In fact there was an overpass bridge that went over the Rio Grande which gave a good urban piece with some juxtaposition next to nature. To add to that there was a bridge under that bridge which I really got a kick out of.

One thing that I love about shooting outside of a studio environment is the opportunity to capture something organic. I’ve done some studio photography in the past and though I did enjoy it, I felt limited in what I could capture in such a small place. Granted studios have their advantages such as being a controlled environment where you know what you can expect and they afford you the ability to get away from prying eyes for the more risque photo shoots. But being that I come from a more journalistic side of photography when I do the more commercial work I like to be able to move around and use scenery to my advantage.

Kenya by the Rio Grand

Now shooting at a location as opposed to a studio does have it’s share of difficulties. Specifically with lighting. Sometimes there’s not enough, Sometimes it’s too harsh and sometimes something is casting some kind of shadow making the light uneven. There are several things can do about this, 1) is be aware of the light you have and where it’s coming from and 2) is editing the RAW Files in Lightroom. You shouldn’t rely on editing to fix your exposures but there is no harm in tweeking your files in post to get then to look the way you want. There are times where an image can look lost but some simple edits can bring it back. There are other things you can do with reflectors and supplemental lighting but that wasn’t readily available to me for this shoot (Once again a benefit to studio and haveing an assistant.).

Kenya and light through the trees.

Overall this was a really fun shoot and I’m looking forward to hopefully having some more over the holiday break since i will have more time on my hands than I will know what to do with.

If you want to see more of Kenya (Specifically in cosplay) You can like her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KenyaChanCosplay

Weekend at the First Ever Con jikan.

When you think of convention you think about large convention centers filled wall to wall with nerd oriented merchandise and cosplayers dressed in your favorite or sometime even unknown anime characters running around getting stopped every 5 seconds to get their pictures taken. Now imagine all of that shrunken down to at least a 1/4 of the size. That is the experience felt in the first year of Con Jikan.

Attendees of Con Jikan prepare to play a round of cosplay chess

Conjikan behaved like any other local convention I’ve attended over the last year. There were a handful of panels for those interested, a local maid cafe for people looking to be entertained, a gaming room to get the competitive juices flowing, a vendors hall for anyone looking to add to their already impressive collection of god knows what, and of course the one thing every convention needs, cosplayers.

One thing that really worked to Con Jikans benifit was the familiarity to the space and how everything was laid out. Being a student at UNM where the convention was being held made it a lot easier to know where everything is and where I would be able to find it if I needed to ask. Now I can’t speak personally for anyone who may not be familiar with the UNM Sub but the organization for the event felt fairly tight which is impressive when you consider how many things can go wrong at conventions.

The one disappointing thing I would say about Con Jikan is the lack of a unique factor that grabs my attention. Being that I’ve only been working the convention circuit for less than a year now I’m already aching for some kind of variety. As a photographer I feel like I’m constantly seeing the same faces in the same outfits at every convention and I wish there was something different that I haven’t seen before. It also doesn’t help that this was an anime and video game convention when I find that my paradigm of nerdom falls in line with more of the western comics and film. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this it’s just incredibly limiting to the opportunities of what can be seen at the convention.

Some may be concerned with the overall size of the event, however I don’t believe that being a small convention should be held against it. 1) Because it’s the first year of the convention that is being run by a small group of enthusiast and 2) there is certain level of intimacy when you have a much smaller group. Suddenly it doesn’t feel like the guest are being put behind a glass wall between them and their fans and you get to interact with them more closely.

Jon Sakura, President of gamers anonymous during his Cyber Zone panel.

Over all Con Jikan can be considered a success being that it is such a small convention and has such a small but dedicated crew behind it. As it continues to grow in the future the changes I would like to see is more outreach to sponsors, fans and other parts of the community of Albuquerque. Having a small local convention is great but you have to be diverse in order to set yourself apart from being just another convention and that’s something that I feel a young convention can accomplish.

Craziest Photography Weekend Ever.

This last weekend I had one of the most hectic weekends photography wise that I’ve ever had to endure. To give a little context to this story we have to go over why I was shooting. My tattoo artist had came to me earlier in the month of October asking if I would do photos for a costume contest he was hosting asking people (females particularly) to submit photos that he would do sketches of, and was offering free ink and piercings to the best ones. Being that many of the submissions were mainly going to be iphone selfies he wanted to contract a guy who could do quality photos and since he had seen my work he offered to do some free ink in return for my services. I’d done other shoots in previous weeks but this weekend is where it got crazy.; luckily a good friend of mine had a warehouse space that she was willing to loan out in return for some photos of herself.

Francesca Hone in catsuit. The owner of the warehouse that let me borrow the space.

Normally I would like to do photos at more candid locations to give a different graphic quality to the images- however some of the girls outfits weren’t necessarily appropriate to have out in public. For example one of the girls came dressed as a Playboy Bunny. Not quite something you want to be wearing downtown in the middle of the afternoon.

She was a bit frosty in the personality coming into it but she had been on camera before and so she knew how to do simple posing. The bunny ears proved to be a bit problematic when it came to compositions but over all I think I did a good job with them.

The second girl on Friday arguably had the more creative outfit. She had put together a peacock costume that was extraordinarily colorful and extravagant which opened up a lot of fun opportunities for what I could do in Lightroom when I started editing.

Other than the two girls that came in that day I also did a shoot with Francesca’s friend Monica who never been on camera before, but her significant other was going out of town and wanted some nice photos to remember her by.

Being that she had never done photos before it was nice having Francesca there to direct. Because god knows that directing models is not my strong suit.

So upon wrapping up the busy Friday I just went back to my place and dumped all the Raw files off the card so I could get editing in Lightroom. I like to get all my editing done very quickly and efficiently. It’s something I picked up in photojournalism. Get em’ in, get em’ toned and get em’ out.

On Saturday my friend Tyler (Who is one of the awful people responsible for me being a photographer) asked me to do some promo pictures for her cosplay group. I of course obliged and went with her up to a village in Placitas by a church to get some shots of her in her cute witch outfit.

Tyler is arguably my favorite person to work with. She’ll never admit it but her photos always come out amazing and she is incredibly good on camera. Also what she does with putting costumes together is nothing short of mind blowing. Once again got them done got home and got editing. I’m gaining a reputation of having incredibly quick turn around times on my work.

Now Sunday is when shit got real. Random shoots kept coming up and I didn’t know what to do or where I was going to take them but luckily Francesca came to the rescue. Now I originally didn’t want to ask her to use her space again mainly because I didn’t want her to feel like I was abusing her. But she had messaged me saying that she was having a photographer with a full lighting set up come in and do photos of her and some other girls who have never done modeling before and asked if I would tag along I said of course and asked if I could use the opportunity to get the other girl who needed photos done in on the same day.

Now before I did that I had already scheduled a shoot earlier that morning with a girl dressed as Rosie the Riveter. I took her down to the abandoned rail yard out in Albuquerque. If you ever look up photographers from Albuquerque you know the one. The shoot was very short and sweet. I didn’t want to spend too much time in a condemned building but the location did offer a lot of personality.

The later shoot at the warehouse where things got a little intimidating. Being that the other photographer that Francesca had over had a more complicated set up it didn’t give me a whole lot of room to work with. Especially when you consider that I shoot with prime lenses. None the less, it was kind of fun to get play with studio lighting and professional flashes. Granted flashes are a bit overwhelming at times but it gave me a few new challenges that I was happy to overcome.

The first girl Francesca had was quite the firecracker. She had a lot of energy and even though she had never done photos before she took direction very well and wasn’t afraid to play around.

Now when the last of the girls who did photos for my tattoo artist came in things got a little more difficult to work with. She was very stiff and didn’t emote very well. It was really just one of those situations where we just had to persist till she warmed up and we could get something out of her. Not every model is going to be easy to work with but you do what you can.

However the last of Francescas friends didn’t have this problem. In fact she had a very warm smile as was able to take direction quite well and it resulted in some very impressive photos.

This was indeed a crazy weekend of photography but it was a great experience and I got to deal with a handful of new and sometimes frustrating situations that photographers have to deal with all in the course of one weekend. That being said, I could use a vacation.

Weekend at ACE.

Kenya Chan, Trudi Devoted, Cheese Cake Panda, Kongumi Cosplay

Two weeks ago I attended that Albuquerque Comic Expo (ACE) in an amature photo grapher doing posed photos for my cosplay friends as well as playing photojournalist on the convention floor with all the random cosplayers. The experience was nothing short of incredible and I was really impressed with my own work. It’s the first time I’ve looked at the photos I’ve taken and thought to myself that I’m good at this. The photo of my friends here links to my Flickr with many of the photos I had taken. I hope you enjoy.

Everyone’s a critic and I’m no exception.

Recently a close friend of mine posted some pictures she took at a local event in downtown Albuquerque onto her facebook and for the most part they were fairly decent photos. However as a photography enthusiast (Not a professional) there were a couple of nit picky critiques I had with many of them. For the most part the photos were all very low in contrast and some of them weren’t the best of compositions. To add to that I mentally went over what I would have done to make the photos better. However I refrained from commenting with my criticism mostly because this was her personal facebook and I didn’t want to come off as a cynical asshole that I know that I can be in certain situations with all our friends witnessing.

However I got really twitchy when she post “I should really start my own photography business.” So many things raced through my head of why that wouldn’t work out, (at least right now) with the main thing being the startup capital. She’s going into her Junior year of college and I know for a fact that she doesn’t have the money to afford the higher end equipment to run a successful photography business. (I’m aware it’s not the equipment that makes a good photographer, but to run a photography business successfully you need to have the means to handle and situation when they are thrown at you.)

Now there are a lot of things I could have said in this situation. I could have made my earlier criticism public in order to crush her dreams, but that would make me a terrible friend. I could have pointed out the difficulty of starting a photography business with the over saturation of photographers out there now. Instead I commented with “Yeah maybe in 5 years.” Now as backhanded as this may sound I was only trying to be rational.

The 5 years came from the idea of a 5 year plan where she could 1) learn the craft and get better at the finer details while at the same time build a portfolio of her best work. 2) Save up and invest in better equipment to be more versatile with what she can do with her photography and 3) Build a reputation with models and potential clients that will be vital in promoting her work.

Now her response to my comment about the 5 year plan resulted with her elaborating on and idea that it can be a student based thing where interested parties can donate and allow the students to make money on their photos. My problem with this is, who would donate into this? I honestly can’t for the life of me think of an individual or organization that would invest in a sort of business model that is so incredibly reliant on unproven talent alone. Not to mention this seems like something that photography classes are for. At the university that we both attended there are multiple classes that teach photography in certain fields. I myself am registered for a photojournalism class as in the fall. I’m hoping to take this class, learn more and find a way to use these skills and apply them to the work that I want to do.

I’m not saying that she shouldn’t go for it. She has the talent and I believe that she could develop into a top notch photographer. But that’s the thing, she needs to develop (I’m aware of how punny that statement is.) And I’m the same way. Whether it’s my writing, my photography or my video making I need to learn more about those fields and apply the skills I acquire over time before I get too starry eyed.

Maybe I’m being too much of a pessimist here and I should let her continue to dream big, but I’d like to think I’m being a realist here in saying “it’s great that you want to do this but work for it first then grab it when you’re ready. “

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