So I was at Great Lakes Comic-Con this Saturday. I love going to comic-con’s. Until recently I never had the opportunity to go to any of these conventions, but not that I’m able to I try to go to as many as I can. Everything about them is great – I get to enjoy all my favorite nerdy stuff with people that appreciate it as well. Plus it’s a great place to get pictures of people in fantastic costumes! So for a photographer that loves star wars, d&d, gaming, and all sorts of nerdy stuff it’s pretty much perfect. This year I had the opportunity to take photo’s at the costume contest on Saturday and I had two realizations.

The first – boy does the lighting suck at these conventions. It was ok when I was walking on the floor, but the area with the costume contest I had to boost the ISO (which added a ton of noise) then I had to reduce that noise which led to soft looking images, so then I had to sharpen them and… long story short – the images themselves turned out ok. I’ve got all sorts of lighting equipment around here that I’m going to try out at the next one to see if I can find an unobtrusive way to light my pictures without being obnoxious.

The second was something one of the MC’s said at the contest – it takes courage to get up on that stage. You know, they are absolutely right about that. A ton of effort goes into these cosplays and getting up on a stage in front of people, let along judges, is tough enough – but when you do it in front of some cosplay judges in cosplay that you spent hours crafting – I can’t imagine the nervousness and pressure that would put on you. So yeah, kudo’s to all the cosplayers – on the stage and off, you are the best part of the convention.

Anyway – here’s some pics from the convention!