Saboten Con This Weekend - Conventions are fun to shoot at!

This weekend I’ll be at the Saboten Con in Phoenix. This is the second year that my girlfriend, Mary, will be selling her handmade goth accessories at this anime convention. Last year, I only attended the last day of the con with her, but I discovered a great way to occupy myself and improve my photography in between customers.

Anime cons are similar to other conventions (i.e. comic book, sci-fi, Star Wars, etc.) in that the attendees tend to dress up as their favorite character, which is also known as cosplaying. I started taking candid photos last year of people dressed up and I had a great time doing so. Since then I went to two other anime conventions in Tucson with Mary and we briefly attended the Phoenix Comicon.

Cosplayer dressed as Harley Quinn at Saboten Con '09

It’s been quite a challenge taking photos at these conventions because the lighting is usually terrible. I’ve been taking my photography seriously now for two years but my main focus has always been nature photography. Lighting is not as much of a challenge outdoors than it is inside the halls and conference rooms of hotels, where the lighting is generally very low and it’s difficult to get the correct exposure.

I’ve been challenging myself at each convention to show improvement in my work. It’s rather difficult to progress when these conventions take place every three or four months, but I think I’ve been doing fairly well. At the first convention I don’t even think I really considered what I was doing and just used the same techniques I used when I was shooting outside. The second convention was a similar experience but I lucked out because the lighting was much better. After that second convention though, I started to think of ways to improve my shots by using a different shooting mode and experimenting with different ISO settings.

Cosplayer dressed as the Joker wearing Arkham Asylum prisoner outfit and handcuffs at Conichwa '10 in Tucson

Most recently, at the last Tucson convention I focused specifically on increasing the ISO, or light sensitivity. I was really afraid to play with it due to the fact that the more you increase the ISO, the more visible noise you will have in the image. The plus side is that you can get a more accurate exposure. I pushed the ISO up anyway and was only partially happy with the results. When I worked on the images in Adobe Lightroom I tried to fix the noise in the images and ended up doing it a bit too much. The photos came out looking kind of flat.

Fortunately I’ve been reading some books by Scott Kelby that have tips on shooting at weddings. Weddings are probably the closest thing in comparison to conventions as far as the lighting situations go. Weddings tend to take place in churches or reception halls with very low light, similar to the hotels that host these conventions.

A wedding photographer is always taking photos of the event and what’s actually taking place. There are of course the formal photos, but there is a lot of walking around the reception and capturing everything.

I’m not a big fan of posed shots of people cosplaying. I prefer to get the candid shots of them chatting with their friends, or cosplaying and interacting with other characters from that specific anime or video game. To me, that’s the connection I make with wedding photography.

Cosplayers at Animeland TuCon '10 in Tucson

So this weekend, I’ll be trying to use as many of the tips from Scott Kelby’s books as possible and I’m hoping to have the best shots yet. Saboten Con is the largest anime convention in Arizona as far as I know, so I’m expecting a very large turnout with a very large pool of subjects. I’ll be sure to post some shots here as well as on my Flickr and Facebook pages.