Last year for Animation on Display, we scheduled a number of private cosplay photo shoots and for this year, we did something a bit different in that we didn’t schedule any photo shoots, but rather just walked around. We did manage to get in a couple of group photo shoots.

Some general con-coverage shots (all shot with Nikon D3 with Nikon PC-E 85mm f/2.8D, ambient lighting):

Photobombed Ran into the ever amazing Rachael Masako Ing, cosplaying, with none other than Sharon Peng, aka Heulangel, (whom I’ve been Facebook buddies with for like ever but never had the opportunity to meet in person):

Did this group shoot from the anime series Ouran High School Host Club with Erskine Noel:

Then did another group photo shoot with Sharon Peng’s group:

Did a shoot with Anna and her group:

And finished off with Naxul and Reiko doing a photo shoot from the anime series Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. For this shoot, I had the chance to play with Jinggoy’s Lumodi beauty dish, which was pretty cool. Also these pics show that you can turn a boring hotel wall into something more interesting with a few speedlights.

Lumodi Beauty Dish Initial Thoughts

My first impression of the Lumodi beauty dish was it felt cheap because it was constructed of mainly plastic, but it didn’t take long to realize it was made lightweight on purpose so that it wouldn’t weigh down the head of the Speedlight. This simplifies the design versus the DIY beauty dish that need some sort of mounting bracket meaning one less item to lose. The biggest question is light quality and how well does it work. It works great. Photos 2-6 from the Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt photo shoot were taken using the Lumodi and you can see how it gives a nice punch of evenly spread light. For the individual portrait shots, I had Jinggoy hold the Lumodi just right out of frame to really get that nice soft lighting you see.

As you  can see from below, with a couple/few Speedlights and a colored gel, you can turn something boring into something exciting.

Photo by Eric Lee.

You can also view all the photos in our 2011 Animation on Display gallery here. If you are a cosplayer or cosplay photographer, please be sure to visit our other site: CosplayPhotographers.com and also like our Cosplay Photographers Facebook page for continual updates! Also a special thank you for Dominic Nguyen for having us back each year!

Camera(s) used: Nikon D3
Lens(es) Used: Nikon PC-E 85mm f/2.8D and Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
Lighting: Nikon SB-900, Nikon SU-800, Nikon SU-800, Lumodi beauty dish, and Honl 1/4″ grid

The weather was perfect this year with nice blue skies and cool breezes without the burning hot temperatures. The turnout was quite excellent this year with a large number of cosplayers as well as cosplay photographers. With plenty of food, refreshments, and games to select from, everyone was having a blast.

I did a few cosplay photoshoots to try out some new lighting techniques, you can see the results below.

You can see more of the photos that Eric and I took in the gallery here. Also be sure to checkout these great photos from other cosplay photographers below (I’ll update this list as I see more photos appear):

• Oscar Cwajbaum
• AV-To
• Eurobeat King
• Kristopher Ling (Facebook)
• Kei Tai
• Michael Tang (Facebook)
• Lynn Truong (Facebook)
• Peter L. Ward (Facebook)

Day 1 at Fanime: Friday

We arrived at Fanime on Friday around 9:00 AM to prepare for our first private photoshoot at 11 AM. When we arrived, there were already quite a number of people congregating in the front of the San Jose Convention Center as well as a long snake of a line of people waiting to register. Fortunately for us, the Press line was much, much shorter meaning we got registered and our badges in 15-minutes. Thanks Milton!

Friday was also our busiest days for photohoots, with a total of nine photoshoots back-to-back. We were quite surprised with the turnout, only had one cancellation for the entire two days.

Was also joined by a number of amazing cosplay photographers: OscarC, Masa-kocha (Rachael), Darkain, Jinggoy Montenejo and Blizzardterrak.

We finished up the long day at around 9:00 PM.

Day 2 at Fanime: Saturday

Our second and final day at Fanime, Saturday was spent photographing the remaining seven photoshoots.

I also had the pleasure of meeting some of the most amazing SoCal Cosplay photographers:

• James Giovanni Pan
• Abbott Wang
• Eric Ng
• Andy Rak
• Tony Quan
• Raul Sandoval

The Amazing Costumes and Cosplayers

We are incredibly blessed to work with so many talented individuals this year! We were blown away at the level of sophistication and detail in the costumes. It’s always a pleasure to work with other dedicated artists. I just wanted to take a moment and give a personal shout-out to each and everyone of them: Hikaru-Jan, Etaru, Yukari, Bekalou, saiyanzrepublik, Cheshire-Heart, Emma Etherington, Imari-Chan, Rachel Perry, Reva Dawn, Anti-Ai-Chan, Naxul, Crystalike, Kazuholic, Tim Malko, Crystal Graziano, LauraC, Miss Nintendo, Angelx624, and sorry to any cosplayers I missed (leave a comment and I’ll add you to this list).

Thank you for allowing us to photograph you!

Fanime 2010 Teaser Pics & Videos

Here are some pictures from Friday and Saturday Fanime photoshoots (I’ll continue updating with new pics as I get them):

Here’s a video of us in action at Fanime 2010:

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can also see our other Fanime videos on our YouTube page.

FanimeCon, for us, was both exciting and tiring. We had lots of fun and can’t wait for Fanime 2011! Next year, I think we’ll be changing things up a bit. Most likely, we’ll only do one day of schedule photoshoots and the next day will be walking around and doing photoshoots with random people we run into.

Keep up-to-date with cosplay specific events and photoshoots on our specially created cosplay website at http://cosplay.buiphotography.com.

For the gearheads, all the photos I took were using a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III (Adorama link) with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM (Adorama link) and various lighting equipment. Lynn was using her Nikon D700 and Rendy was using his Nikon D300. We triggered the Speedlites with Nikon CLS and PocketWizards. Video was recorded using a Canon EOS 7D and was masterfully edited by Eric Lee.

Bekalou and Yukari take pose right in front of a store in-between the pagoda and fountain in Japantown:

Shot of Yukari in action:

This was shot across the street from the pagoda in Japantown:

Bekalou again:

We also grabbed some shots of Naxul behind the fountain in Japantown:

The Hotel Kabuki is a beautiful, luxurious hotel in the bustling San Francisco Japantown. With a secluded outdoor Japanese garden, the Hotel Kabuki would be a great wedding venue! If any of you brides and grooms are planning to have your reception and/or ceremony at the Hotel Kabuki, please contact us and let’s talk about what we can do for you. Lots of picturesque locations throughout the hotel itself including a very nice second-floor bar. So it was only natural as to why a number of people had wondered why we didn’t do any photoshoots inside the Hotel Kabuki, the answer is simple: because there were hundreds of other photographers taking photos in there. Plus it was extremely crowded. As with wedding photography, at Bui Photography, we stand-out from the crowd. So rather than competing for space and having similar looking photos to other cosplay photographers, we opted to go somewhere else to create art: outside and around Japantown.

You can also see behind-the-scene photos on our Facebook page here and here.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes Youtube video that you can also find on our Facebook page:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The selection of Kelley Park in San Jose was an excellent choice for venue. Those who were at this year’s Spring Gathering will remember it was held at Hakone Gardens, which was also a great choice. Kudos to Oscar for always choosing excellent venues. It has ample parking, vast lands with plenty of foliage, lots of picturesque settings, an old town setting, and a Japanese Tea Garden; couldn’t possible ask for more back-drops. The weather was nice and warm and fortunately there were plenty of areas with lots of shade so we can avoid being sunburned and/or sweating profusely.

There were probably some 80+ cosplayers and photographers who showed up. The event was advertised on both Facebook and Cosplay.com. Lately we at Bui Photography have been doing less and less private photo shoots at these events, focusing rather on quality than quantity. Obviously for an event this large, it would be nearly impossible in the limited time and with limited resources to photograph every single person with different backgrounds and poses. I’m sorry to those who wanted a photo shoot with us and we weren’t able to get to you, but we will be SacAnime this year and we will try to get you there, but we also are fully booked on private photo shoots there also. You can also skip ahead and just see all the pictures here.

For this event, I photographed KittyKatChi, Shinobi Yukari, and Bekalou. KittyKatChi had just finished her costume last minute and it turned out great. She cosplayed as Rogue from X-Men:

Shinobi Yukari cosplayed as Ulquiorra from my favorite anime, Bleach:

Bekalou cosplayed as Syaoran from the anime Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles:

You can see their sets by visiting http://photos.buiphotography.com/Events/2009-Norcal-Summer-Gathering. You can see the rest of the pictures I took by clicking here.

Here are some highlights of shots that Eric Lee took:

And here are some highlights of shots that photographer Lynn Truong took:

You can see the other photographer’s pictures here (if I missed anyone, shoot me an email and I’ll include it here):

• OscarC – http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/9293919_ZjB2D?referrer=9hP1vNoXtyi3E&ref=nf#621082184_Dbws4
• Michael Tang – http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32340&id=1150639645&ref=share
• Traveling Valentine – http://travelingvalentine.com/coverage/norcalpicnic2009/index.htm
• Stormfalcon – http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j73/Stormfalcon_sj/NorCal%20Summer%202009%20Cosplay%20Gathering/Digital/
• Kagelump – http://picasaweb.google.com/kagelump/Norcal2009#
• Ginryuu – http://ginriru-tatsu.deviantart.com/gallery/#Washed-Away
• Wingdrabbit2005 – http://keitsubasa.deviantart.com/journal/26646463/
• Kimu – http://s942.photobucket.com/albums/ad266/kimu_cosplay/NorCal%20Summer%20Picnic%2009/?start=0
• lalaxmink – http://sc-x-kazuha.tabulas.com/gallery/20090815-norcal-summer-gathering/
• Shinjixikari – http://winterwish.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=4626&g2_page=1
• WithinIllusion – http://www.flickr.com/withinillusion
• Misoshiru – http://www.flickr.com/photos/38865848@N07/sets/72157622058837860/
• Katsumiyo – http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa318/heroonadonkey/NorCal%20Summer%20Picnic%202009/
• Tenchi Fan – http://faidoi.smugmug.com/gallery/9291884_YpURN

To learn more about future cosplay photoshoots, please view our Bui Photography Cosplay Photography site here.

“This is a perfect way to indulge yourself, given everything that’s going on,” says Richard Bui, a photographer who’s documenting the Bay Area’s rapidly growing cosplay scene. “Making these costumes is about effort, not money. And when you wear them, you forget about the economy. It’s funny, but in some ways the easiest way to just be yourself is to become someone else.”

One of my favorite models, Bekkalou, also appears in the article. I recently had a blast photographing her as Saber from the anime Fate/stay night [link to pictures] and will be working with her again at FAnime 2009.

Be sure to read the entire article at SFGate.com [link to article] and/or in tomorrow’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.

And if you have time, checkout some pics I’ve taken at various cosplay events:

• 2009 Norcal Spring Gathering
• WonderCon2009
• 2008 FAnime Con
• 2008 Cherry Blossom Festival
• More events

I spent more time focusing on a few select cosplayers rather than trying to photograph everything, quality over quantity for me. I was fortunate to get in about a total of five photo shoots. The first two of Katsumiyo and Bekalou are posted. Below are some samples and you can continue to check out my Norcal Spring Gathering category [link] for the rest of the photo shoots.

Also don’t forget to check out photos from these other photographers:

• David Yu – Pbase
• Oscar Cwajbaum (OscarC) – SmugMug
• David Yao (WinterWish) – Gallery
• Wren – PhotoBucket
• Travel-Valenti – Blog post with pictures
• dantris-driffen – Flickr
• Quito (Bishop027) – Flickr
• Tenchi Fan – SmugMug

Bekalou as Saber from Fate/stay night anime.

Bekalou as Saber from Fate/stay night anime.

Bekalou as Saber from Fate/stay night anime.

Katsumiyo as Adiane the Elegant from the anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Katsumiyo as Adiane the Elegant from the anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Katsumiyo as Adiane the Elegant from the anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann