Planet Comicon Free Photography Recap

My goal was to provide free professional photography for cosplayers (for ‘why’ scroll down this page). So, here is my Planet Comicon Recap 2015.

If you are interested in my gear for this; two Paul C. Buff White lightings 1600 and an Alienbee 400 for hair light. There was a 30” x 60” softbox, 64” parabolic umbrella and a gridded strip softbox for back lighting. Used Cybersyncs to trigger and shot with a 5D Mark III + 24-70mm f/2.8.  Finally just used a simple black backdrop.

I tried to take at least a couple photographs of everyone that wanted one… and was VERY seldom not shooting. Big thanks to my new ‘con-moms’ looking out for me by making sure I was hydrated (especially Nicole who grabbed me a sandwich when I just couldn’t walk away from more cosplayers). Every moment I thought there was some time, two or three more cosplayers showed up looking all sorts of awesome.

Somehow, someway it got said that I could deliver all of these photos in a week. I probably said it… DOH so… I delivered over 1,400 photos in LESS than a week (I will make sure that never gets said again, ha!). One thing that helped me knock out so many photos was how awesome everyone looked. I was so impressed with the costumes. It was an honor to shoot these artists in the way that “we the fans” see them.

I always get great feedback of how appreciative a bride and groom are. Many times parents will email/call about how great it was to work with me, and that feedback is so appreciative. But in the two days at Planet Comicon… I got more “thank you,” more “So glad you are doing this,” so many, “wait… for FREE?!” so people saying, “OMG” that my heart has an overwhelming feeling of happiness.  First, I get the pleasure of photographing this fantastic group of people and then they are so vocal with appreciation? Such fulfillment.

For those whom might be interested in the numbers. As of March 30, 2015, two weeks after Planet Comicon ended, my Facebook page got 50% more likes. After one week, my ‘reach’ was 8,400 and after another it was nearly 10,000 people (which I thought was pretty cool). The two fast preview videos totaled around 5,000 people reached. But the mind-blowing statistic is how many total photo views I had in my Smugmug galleries. I had two, one for Friday and one for Saturday (if you want access to them, sign up here).  These two galleries… had a total of 1,008,473 views…

OVER A MILLION. IN TWO WEEKS!That is an average of over 3,000 views an hour, round the clock, for two weeks.

From the IBOTs

Thank you so much for all your hard work at Planet Comicon 2015. You acted in a professional manner while showing each cosplayer that you were interested in their character and wanted the best possible image for them. So happy to have met you and worked with you.

It was such a pleasure! Hope to shoot with you guys again soon. Thanks to KC Cosplay & Photography, my sunk cost were cut way down because of you! I