Ive finally made my debut as a more ambitioned Cosplay Photographer last weekend at one of Germany`s biggest Conventions called Animagic which was held in our former capital Bonn.Upon my arrival I was armed only with my trusty camera gear and optimism that Ill finally succeed in doing more than snapshots of people in weird clothes.Did I succeed? Find it out after the Jump!
First off I want to send a huge thank you to Meronpan for the support and guidance he gave me when I told him a few months ago that I want to get into Cosplay/Portrait Photography.He endured alot of silly questions and chatter from my side and was patient all the time.Its thanks to him that I decided for my Sigma 1.4 50mm Prime and not for the photographers standard solution of a Zoom Lens with 70 – Something mm. I simply dont wanna turn back to my Zoom Lenses after laying my hands on my prime even though it involves alot of walking to frame the subject. ^^;;;
One of my biggest drawbacks in taking pictures of cosplayers has been my shyness in regards to asking them for their picture.I always felt kind of awkward taking pictures of girls in scantily clad clothes and had a hard time during the Japanday`s aswell as the Dokomi.Luckily I overcame that shyness pretty fast at the Animagic and throughout the days Ive shot more than 750 pictures.The Organizing I did the last two days was pretty time consuming but I wanted to post only the cream of the crop ( which in my case is still pretty mediocre ^^;)
Another thing that took me some time to get used to was to hand my meishis to the cosplayers since I felt once again awkward advertising for myself like this.I thank JimmPantsu for encouraging me to hand my meishis to Cosplayers.It turned out that most cosplayers were more than happy to take my card and who knows maybe some opportunities arise from these exchanges.
Since were already talking about German Bloggers I recommend you to take a look at JimmPantsu`s aswell as TMSIDR`s Cosplay Gallery.We were often prowling together for our prey,thats why quite a few pictures display the same characters but in the end the personal preferences of the bloggers resulted in a nice variety of pictures.
My last big thank you goes to all the cosplayers that did allow me to take pictures of them.You all rock!
Time for some pics otherwise its TL;DR huh?
Who you`re gonna call?
Fuu,Mugen and Jin from Samurai Champloo seem to be obsessed with a dango ^^
One of the many alternative Saber costumes which I think is from Fate/Extra
Wedding Ceremony of the Dead? eh…I mean BRAAAAAAAAAIIIIINSSS!
PinkStoneShooter and what I believe to be Kei Kishimoto of Gantz
EXCAAAAALIBUUUR!!! and Free from Soul Eater
Decided to spice up their poses a bit eh voila…Wonderful!
Stein,Death the Kid and Soul from Soul Eater beeing Asymmetric
Thalassa Gramayre from Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Thalassa,Klavier Gavin and Ema Skye from Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Black Star joined the Gang!
I believe that this guy is an early Version of the Guy in Jin Roh ^^;;;;
Lookie,Lookie I even photographed Miku and Luka for you fine people
Furio Tigre from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Excel and Ha-chan must have been in dire straits since no Menchi is to be seen ^^;;;
Love and Peace!
This is a very coolsome and dedicated Voldo Cosplay including barenaked ass.
Taokaka is more confusing than regular cosplayers since you cant even see the cosplayers face
Ranulf,Lethe and…girl I forgot from Fire Emblem
Zoidberg and Fry
Blair from Soul Eater.One of the few instances where shes running around fully clothed ^^;;;
Looks like Frank West took care of the Zombies
Now hes thrown into a much more fightening nightmare than a city crawling with the undead: an anime convention.
But hes gonna be alright.Why you ask? He`s covered wars ya know?
Our favorite 14 year old readhead with boobs like melons: Yoko
Another Taokaka! I wa sreally pondering if I already took a picture of her or not.Luckily I didnt 
I think these are the Silent Hill Nurses without that stuff on their faces?
Oh Yoko how I love your big …Gun
This is the Moment where I went Nuts… A Queens Blade Cosplayer of our favorite non-loli Ymir the Dwarven Steel Princess! And this was only the beginning!!!
Nabeshin and his afro
Gintoki without his trademark dead fish eyes and Haruko with her trademark Rickenbacker
Okay,okay in this Situation a WideAngle Lens would have been the better choice.Crappy Framing aswell and poor Konata is hidden behind the PomPoms….Im sorry girls ^^;;;;;;;;;;;
Claire and Jill!
I guess Frank West had help clearing this area of Zombies 
Lucy/Nyu and Nana
The cast of Jibril: the Devil Angel
My hats of for cosplaying a hentai series.Btw that series had an interesting way to level up your powers … ^^
Fanboymode increased! Second QB Cosplay Get!
Menace and her trusty friend Sethra! Too bad she was so busy.Would have liked to take some more pics because it was a great cosplay.
Harima and Tenma
I think I must have foam on my mouth when I saw QB Rebellion Ymir and QG Alice XD
Those two were really nice and agreed to take a few more pictures later
Gurugu Mawaru! Harima,Tenma,Sou,Eri,Hanai and Yakumo with Iori!
This is where I have to apologize to the awesome Alice Cosplayer…I used the intelligent auto focus function of my camera during this shot and the camera was intelligent enough to focus on the wall instead of you…It didnt show up blurry on my Cameras Screen even when I zoomed in otherwise I would have taken another picture worthy of the pose I asked you to do.
On the other hand these two look great.I especially like the close up of her face below
Heres a short intermission before we continue with the pictures…
When I asked Alice and Ymir for a few more shots with posing all the sneaky photographers jumped out of their corners and started taking pictures aswell.I never knew how annoying it feels as a photographer when other people take advantage of the fact that you asked for pictures.I felt quite pressured by all the people taking pictures behind me and is probably one of the reasons why I messed up the full body Alice Shot. I used to do the exact same thing on the Japandays and now I realize that it isnt exactly the nicest thing to do since youre disturbing the photographer that had the courage to ask and wants to take some nice pictures.
I dont want to sound snobby or anything but guys please wait until the other ones done and then ask for pictures again.
Awesome QB Rebellion Ymir Cosplay! She should have come with Eirin!
Great Pose!
Love how these Close Ups turned out thanks to bokeh
Elizabeth! I wonder what happened to Zura?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Gundam and Transformers united!
Heres a nice Aria Cosplayer!
Was fun to see how much she enjoyed that pictures were taken.
BRS once again but this time with blue flame…and a Blowfish Reflection in her Shades XD
Shichika and Togame from Katanagatari.
Too bad that no Maniwani Ninjas were around
CHEERIO!
Yes,another QB Cosplayer! This time its the infernal temptress Airi waiting to suck out your life energy!
The funny thing is by the time Airi popped up I thought that its not possible for me QB Cosplayers popping up but I was completley wrong ^^
Asuka and Rei in one of the trillion alternnative costumes
Row,Row fight da Powa!
Yoko,Nia and Simon
Yup,this Ymir also agreed to let me take some more pictures
Thank you!
Meryl Strife must have been in cold sweat when she realized that there were several Vashs running around the area ^^
Black Gold Saw by the former Ymir Cosplayer!
God I love Closeups with a nice bokeh
Nicholas D Wolfwood beeing badass
DRRR! Mikado + Anri beeing harassed by the Ganguro Girls
Poor Shinobu was all alone…Noone else from the Bakemonogatari cast was seen.I do know that she also cosplayed Taokaka.I wonder if shes one of the Taokakas I got infront of my lens.
Milly Thompson infront of a terribly outburnt sky
Yes! More QB <3
Elina beeing sneaky
A girl in Shuffle Uniform! Sadly I forgot the characters name ^^;
Real Life Mario Kart!
Hehe… Okay,this is where it starts to become epic!
Nowa and Tomo from QB
Ru is just hanging around.Lazy Ape!
Young Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Yay! More QB!
This time its Sai Nyan from QB Rebellion!
Remillia and Hong Meiling
Remillia is sporting such a great pose!
Woot! New QB Cosplayer get: Alleyne!
I guess its time to say that I was really,really lucky and that there was a QB Meeting going on.You can only imagine how happy I was,as the QB Fanboy I am, when they allowed me to come with them to take some more pictures.
A BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG THANK YOU to you girls. You cant imagine how happy you made me with this.
Heres another Airi thats beeing watched by Beethoven in the background
Thats the cast I was allowed to tag along with: Ymir,Airi,Tomoe,Alleyne,SaiNyan,Nowa
I was really excited that this opportunity showed up and therefore I made quite a few mistakes like forgetting to change the ISO Higher when shooting with a smaller Aperture which resulted in blurred shots.Its quite a bummer because I wanted to give my best for these shots.
I hope the girls arent too disappointed by my shots.I hope the other Photographs pictures turned out better
This was a hard decision…I couldnt choose between these two pictures for a few reasons:
Picture one is crisper but has the other photographers arm in it and Tomoe is nearly completley covered by Airi
Picture two is a bit more blurry but everyones visible and hasnt got the photographers arm in it.Sadly Airi isnt looking too good in this shot.Seems like I pressed the button in the wrong moment ^^;;
If any Cosplayer is reading this: Do you prefer good compositions or good expressions? Both at once would of course be the optimum but what woul you choose if you had to pick one?
Recreation of the Anime!
This Picture is kinda awkward since Ymir is completley covered by Airi ( seems like Airi likes to do that) and it was the only one of the series that didnt turn out blurry.The Bokeh on Airis face on the other hand was on purpose.I wanted to give the picture a feeling of depth. I hope you dont mind Airi ^^;
Celty and Izaya
Celty Cosplay sounds good on paper but looks rather unspectacular in person.Its not that she did a bad cosplay but Celtys gear is just black and a helmet.Theres not much for the eye to discover
The wise deity Horo
And last but not least Trucy from Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
The last few days have been quite interesting for me since I think that Ive gained alot of great personal experience not only in regards to photography but also in getting in contact and socializing with others out of this weekend.Its great that you get so many chances tomake your shutter click and to ban so many people on your cameras sensor.Ive shot quite a few crappy shots throughout the weekend but I also feel that Ive taken quite a few nice ones.
I learned to always double check your settings before jumping into an exciting shooting the hard way but hey we all started as beginners right?
Im gonna rest now for a bit and gonna post a Convention Impressionn Post in the next few days.
Until then~
Blowfish
PS: None of these Shots were edited in any kind.Just developed them with Lightroom and Watermarked them in PS Elements.
Blowfish was shining like a “Honigkuchenpferd” how you would say in german. He was really really happy over all that QB Cosplay^^
On the other side TMSIDR and I weren´t so lucky with the numbers of Cosplayer from our favourite series.
But this way I think that Blowfish would become a regular convention Visitor now and that is good
This definately made my day.
At best I hoped for one maybe two QB Cosplayers but seeing so many,with awesome costumes,that even allowed me to take pictures simply blew my mind.
Yup,I am definately gonna tag with you guys more often from now on^^
Even if you didn’t think some of these pictures came out the best the costumes these people are wearing blow me away, so who cares if a few are fuzzy! xD Thanks for taking so many pics of this event, it looks like there was a lot of spectacular cosplays there and I really enjoyed looking at them all.
There were many amazing costumes and if you would have asked me a few months ago I would have probably trashed german cosplay but compared to a few years ago these guys really give their best.
Thats why I am also unhappy how some pictures turned out.When they are doing their best I also wanna do my best with capturing these guys work.
I’m jealous XD So many awesome cosplayers and you were there to capture them all on camera, many of them looked very into the characters they were dressed up as, and I love some of the action/lively poses they were doing. You are well on your way to becoming a professional cosplay photographer at this rate. I doubt I need to ask if you’re going to keep going to cons now
So many great pictures I don’t even want to mention any of them that stood out to me because so many of them rocked XD I envy you for having been there to capture them.
Persocom recently posted..Annelotte Limited 2P Version by MegaHouse NSFW
Yeah,better be jealous!
Move your butt to a convention the next time one is held.
I am pretty sure that you can live up to my performance aswell.
I definately plan to go to conventions more often and hope to better my skills so that everyones happy with the pictures I snap
OMG! I love love love these pics and I so envy you for being there and getting such great shots, imo I love that Celty cosplay, and I thank you so much for getting those shots, as I am indeed a huge Celty fan! Those QB shots were pure win!:D
And there were so many more I wanted to comment on, but the vast amount of pics made me forget alot of what I saw, so in the end I will say, YOU ROCK!:D Would love to go to an anime convention with you sometime if I can get out your way, and hopefully do some cosplay of some of my favorite characters!:D
I’m sure Persocom would totally agree with your fantastic camera abilities, and would want to come along as well, if only we could get him on a plane.:P
Hope to meet you in RL someday and get to hang out!:D
Thanks so much for sharing such an awesome time that was obviously had, and keep up the amazing work!:D
Riiana Doon recently posted..Annelotte Limited 2P Version by MegaHouse NSFW
Woah…WOAH… Thats quite alot of praise for me and I think that praise has to go to the cosplayers since they poured all the work into this.
I merely did activate the shutter ^^;;
But yes, I totally agree that you two should come over here one day and that we should have a good time ^^
I like the excalibur and free. I didn’t see any at Otakon last week, so have to smile at seeing them from your pics on the other side of the world. I’m pretty into Soul Eater right now.
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Yeah, Sould Eater is actually a pretty nice Shounen Series.
Didnt expect it to like it as much as I do.
So isnt Soul Eater popular over there?
I expected Exaclibur atlesat to be popular with the crowd
Nice photos, looks like that prime lens delivers nicely! ^^
Saw the set on Flickr earlier, some excellent costumes. Looks like you had a fun time at the convention. ^^
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I am very,very happy how the lens produces such nice pictures.
I shelled out some pretty cash for it so it would have been a bummer if it wouldnt ^^
Was definately fun!Cant wait for the next one
Some really nice cosplays here. I love those two fully covered thingies from Soul Eater. And I really like the BRS cosplay too; she even has the canon. Anyways, really nice photos. ^ ^
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It must have been a pain to run around in the Free and Excalibur Cosplays.From what they told me they couldnt see a thing and it was pretty hot outside.
I guess thats what they mean that you have to suffer for your art XD
wow, so many pictures!!
I loved the Aria cosplay.
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Ill tell her! Im am pretty sure that shell be very happy about this ^^
Yes,many pictures it was alot mor ein the beginning and a pain to work through
I enjoyed your photos, they are similar to what I like to shoot. It’s good that I found another photographer with a similar style!
My debut was as ALA ’10, and I had some fun there. I hope you enjoyed your time doing this!
Yup,I really enjoyed doing this and besides beeing fun Im actually learning how to handle my camera.
Haha its great to hear that you like to take picture in a similar style to mine.Definately need to check out your blog
Awesome work. Your photography is definitely top notch and it shows. Seems to be a lot more interesting cosplays there rather than the convention I went to.
Anyways, nice work!
Kairu90 recently posted..The New Phone-phobia
Haha,thats too much praise for my humble work ^^;
Theres still many things to work on for me but its good to hear that you like my pictures.
To be honest I was amazed at the quality of the cosplays aswell.Kudos to all those people.
Your work is amazing. You are a spectacular photographer. Those cosplayers were also better than any I had seen at the conventions I go to.
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Oh my once again too much praise for me ^^;;;
Praise the Cosplayers I merely took some shots of them.Some turned out nice and some not so ^^;
Yeah, some of these cosplays were quite awesome
Thanks for the QB photos! :3 I love your photography and hope you will upload some group pictures from QB on Animexx later =D!
(und da mein Englisch Müll ist sag ichs mal weiter auf Deutsch xDv: Hast du schonmal versucht bei dem einem Gruppenbild den Hintergrund auszuschneiden und im anderen Foto einzusetzen wo der Arm davor ist? =D Müsste eigentlich ganz gut funktionieren wenn dir das Foto besser gefällt ^^! Bin übrigens die Nowa davon,… äh und die Luka Magnet aus Vocaloid auch xD)
Auch wenn mein Blog in Englisch ist bist du nicht gezwungen auf Englisch zu kommentieren ^^
Erstmal ein dickes Danke das du dir die Mühe gemacht hast bei mir hier vorbeizuschauen
Den Animexx Teil des Kommentars werde Ich wie versprochen einfach mal ignorieren. XD
Es freut mich natürlich das dir die Bilder soweit gefallen aber trotzdem wurmt es mich das Ich an einigen Stellen doch Mist gebaut habe.Das Ganze ist natürlich ein Teil des Lernprozesses aber grade da Ich eben QB mag hats mich schon geärgert. Und naja euch möchte Ich dann natürlich auch mit möglichst schönen Fotos beglücken.
Das mit dem Ausschneiden kann Ich natürlich mal ausprobieren aber Ich bin bisher kein PS Hero.Was nicht ist kann ja noch werden ^^
So,So jetzt weiß Ich also auch warum mir die Magnet Luka so bekannt vorkam und wenn Ich mich nicht Irre warst du auch Maid auf der Dokomi.
Erschreckend wie oft wir uns schon über den Weg gelaufen sind ^^;
Ich muss aber zugeben wenn man nur ein Gesicht kennt ist es echt schwer sich eine Person zu merken.
Da ist mir ja manchmal echt die spucke weggeblieben wenn man euch in Zivil sieht
So Comment ist lang genug XD
Nochmal ein dickes Danke Kaori!
I gotta admir that Ymir, I would be checking my girls all day long uncomfortably if that was my outfit. I’m really surprised by all the Phoenix Wright! I’m only 3 games into the series right now. There were definitely a lot of characters in this group that got me nostalgic for some of my favorite stories, the Samurai Champloo trio and Aria especially!
Sorry I can’t comment as often as I used to! I blog on break at work and can’t open your Queen’s Blade posts