Location: Cabin @ Park at Bothell Landing, Bothell, WA

Time: Afternoon

Weather: Cloudy

Lighting: 20″x20″ softbox x 1, 580EX II. Camera right slight higher

Camera and lens: Canon 40D with 28-135 IS USM

To me, capturing a wonderful image is only half the battle, and the other half happens in the post production. Photography to me is more than just capturing the world as you see it, but it’s an art form, a way for the photographer to express his or her vision of the scene, and that magic happens in the post production.

That’s what I have been working on, simply trying to explore more techniques and methods to materialize the vision I had when taking that particular image.

I have been wanting to do a shoot with Vince and Lada after meeting them at Sakura Con ’10, and as Summer came and they moved back to Pacific Northwest temporarily, I took the opportunity to arrange a shoot with them.

After seeing so many pictures of Lada everywhere on the interweb, I came prepared to be blown away by the awesomeness, yet, that wasn’t enough. If you have ever worked with an epic cosplayer before, then you’ll know what I mean.

But that’s not it.

Vince, being a tech/photo guy like myself, showed me a whole lot of stuff on the tech end, and that’s totally mind -> blown. The wealth of information he shared was too much to detail here, but I can say that I was still in shock hours after the shoot.

My blown mind aside, the shoot was done using Vince’s strobes. We started out using 4, 2 for backdrop and 2 for the subject, slowly migrated to 5 and 6 strobes, just to try out different types of setup. This setup itself was enough to overwhelm me, as I have only worked with 1 strobe so far. And with Vince showing me all of his photographic accessories, I realized after the fact that I was so mesmerized by all the little gadgets that I forgot my main goal was to take pictures of Lada.

I have to say, shooting with multiple strobes and with a backdrop is a very different experience. Perhaps I was forgiven because I was/am still a noob in this type of photography?

Nevertheless, I had a great time working with Vince and Lada, and I definitely learned a lot of stuff for that session. Not sure how many opportunities I got to work with them as they both have busy schedules, but I do look forward to shooting with them again in the not too distant future.

And it probably goes without saying that I want to improve my photography even faster, eh?

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Left: Andrea trying to sell me a sea shell. Right: Katie being cute.

Another month, another Gasukan. This one was quite different from all the ones I have participated though, not only the amount of people that showed up was amazing, but I also took an amazingly amount of pictures. I also stayed for roughly 5 hours, the longest I have stayed for any cosplay meetup.

Pix: Christine and Charlotte doing the swimsuit / beach shoot for Ken’s project.

I guess one of the reasons so many people showed up was because Ken gathered many of his friends to do his swimsuit / beach project at the same time. It was a great idea, actually, because Golden Gardens turned out to be one of the best beach park here in Pacific Northwest that I have been to. The beach was quite packed though.

Left: Hayley being NZtalia. Right: BB being Australitalia

But of course, I wouldn’t want to miss out the opportunity to take cosplay pictures too. And quite surprisingly, my friends showed up in some sort of Indiana Jones type explorer, safari outfits for Hetalia. I have no idea where that came from, but it was hella cool.

Pic: Marie splashing the water. Seems like loads of fun…too bad I couldn’t play with the camera in hand (that and the water was FREEZING)

Like any other Gasukan, it’s always a great time to meet new friends, as this GK was no exception. I met quite a few friends’ friends, which is always fun.

Pix: Vocaloid bunch, by Bethany, David, and Miranda

It’s pretty exhausting to run around taking pictures under the hot sun, though. By the end of the day I was ready to just sit down and eat something and drink a large amount of liquid. Eli, being a super awesome guy, gave me a sandwich, and that, is a super lifesaver. THANK YOU ELI! And as always, if you are interested in GK, just stop by the meetup sometime. Everyone’s friendly, and nobody bites.

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Ever since seeing one of my photographer friend Ken‘s work, I have been wanting to venture out into the world of “sexy” photography, and it just so happened that my another photographer friend, Molly, also has modeling experience, I invited her to do a photography project of mine, “shower & bath”, and it turned out to be a blast.

The shoot is very different from what I have been doing for many reasons. First of all, It was my first time using 5D Mark II combined with the 50mm 1.8 II lens. Secondly, the project itself is something new to me. In addition, shooting in a bathroom with flash is somewhat challenging, and it took some work to figure out what type of lighting effect I was trying to achieve.

In the end, with some inputs from everyone including Molly, Alli (my assistant for the shoot!), and Matt (creative input), and myself, we decided to go with an overexposed look, which turned out to be yet another first from this shoot.

Since the entire shoot was done with some of the best gears there are right now, I was very impressed with the image quality. The sharpness at 100% is absolutely stunning, that is, if the focus was dead on.

One thing I didn’t expect was the heat coming from the hot shower. Well, I think it’s pretty apparent why Molly used hot water, but I didn’t realize at the time and thought why couldn’t she turn the heat down a bit. Yeah…fail on my part. In the end, this was probably one of the hottest and steamiest shoot I have ever done.

All in all, this was quite a memorable shoot, and thanks to Molly, now I have images to showcase what exactly this “shower & bath” project is all about. While Molly went the sexy route, I also want to recruit people who would go the cute and abstract routes. As a little plug on the side, let me know if you are interested in doing this project!

Oh, as an additional plug, Molly is a creative public figure who specializes in photography, digital design, creative writing, modeling, and unicorn riding. Check her out at mollymcisaac.com or “like” her on facebook.

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