We made a quick trip up to the Boerner Botanic Garden in lovely Hales Corners, Wisconsin and I thought maybe I should take a few friends along. You know, just to get them out of the apartment and stretch a little.
While I was talking to April and lamenting the sad state of my Plastic 52 project (I started the project on June 27th, 2008) when from behind me I heard, "Camerasman! Hey Camerasman! HEY!"
I whipped around and there stood Hugg, Wage's apron hastily draped over his shoulder. "Camerasman! Take my picture!"
Wondering what happened to Wage, I knelt down and started lining up my shot. From the corner of my viewfinder I saw this naked orange streak run into the frame shouting, "Give me back my clothes!"
Click.
Be good,
-Dave
|
7:40 AM by
El Dave
, under
Formerly Wizard World Chicago, this year was a departure from the previous convention format. Placing a higher emphasis on media and entertainment guests, Marvel and DC's booths were replaced by Edward James Olmos, Ernie Hudson, Billy Dee Williams, and more wrestlers that you can shake a stick at. The show was still a great time, however, and I was able to meet friends old and new to hang out and share a love of comics. Thanks to David Price, I was able to go in with a press badge and take some shots of the different creators and all the great costumes.
Speaking of costumes, there were a TON of them this year. In fact, there were so many that I didn't get to see them all, much less take pictures. I would spy someone I wanted a shot of across the hall, but as I made my way over, I would get sidetracked by a completely different costume. Or people would tell me about great outfits they'd seen earlier and send me off on a wild chase for characters I couldn't find (I'm looking at YOU Blue Lantern and Nicole Fury).
Photography wise, I found myself drawn to the portraits. As I've said before, costume photography is something I would love to do in a more controlled environment (ie not on a crowded convention floor) and I was just really, really happy taking portraits of Luke Cage, a Sith Twilek, and Stormtroopers. Maybe there's another book there? I don't know. I did have a very cool conversation with the guys and gals of the 501st Midwest Garrison, so there may be opportunities there.
Ok, enough blabbering from me. Below are just a few of the pics I took. Click on any of them to be taken to my Flickr set where you can view them all at your liesure.
Be good,
-Dave
|
It has been a busy couple of weeks! First, I would like to congratulate my cousin's basketball team for making it all the way to 2nd place in the AAU girls national tournament! I flew out to Virginia to cheer them on and I was asked to help photograph the games. Let's be honest, shooting a bunch of 6' tall teenage girls is about as far as you can get from 6" action figures, but it was a great experience and I really enjoyed doing it.
Second, Wizard World Chicago is this weekend and I can't wait to get in there with my camera. To be honest, I'm so excited for the show, I'm having trouble concentrating on what I'm supposed to be writing here...
Gears of War, courtesy of Gearspedia:
Gears of War is a science fiction video game franchise, created by Epic Games and owned and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The two games that currently make up the series take place on the fictional planet Sera and focus on a war between humans and creatures known as the Locust Horde. In Gears of War, the protagonist Marcus Fenix, a soldier or "Gear" in the Coalition of Ordered Governments, leads his squad on a mission to deploy the Lightmass bomb and destroy the Locust Horde in their underground strongholds. The sequel Gears of War 2 takes place six months after the events of the first game, and follows Delta Squad and the COG army as it launches an assault directly against the Hollow in an effort to end the war.
This was taken at the Chicago Botanic Garden, inside their Test Garden. I stood Fenix in the plant bed and turned to face the sun so I would get that great silhouette and snapped a bunch of shots.
All I had to do in Photoshop was add a thin gradient (yellow/blue) to make the sunlight pop and the shadows sink just that little bit more. Otherwise? Yeah, that's all I did.
I'm going to an EXIF Convention:
| Camera: | Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi |
| Exposure: | 1/4000 sec |
| Aperture: | f/5.6 |
| Focal Length: | 55 mm |
| ISO Speed: | 400 |
| Exposure Bias: | 0 EV |
| Flash: | Off, Did not fire |
| File Size: | 2.7 MB |
| File Type: | JPEG |
| MIME Type: | image/jpeg |
| Image Width: | 2592 |
| Image Height: | 3888 |
| Encoding Process: | Baseline DCT, Huffman coding |
| Bits Per Sample: | 8 |
| Color Components: | 3 |
| X-Resolution: | 72 dpi |
| Y-Resolution: | 72 dpi |
| Orientation: | Horizontal (normal) |
| Software: | Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows |
| Date and Time (Modified): | 2009:08:03 19:24:02 |
| YCbCr Positioning: | Co-sited |
| Exposure Program: | Aperture-priority AE |
| Date and Time (Original): | 2009:08:02 18:51:34-05:00 |
| Date and Time (Digitized): | 2009:08:02 18:51:34 |
| Metering Mode: | Multi-segment |
| Color Space: | sRGB |
| Focal Plane X-Resolution: | 4433.29532497149 dpi |
| Focal Plane Y-Resolution: | 4453.60824742268 dpi |
| Custom Rendered: | Normal |
| Exposure Mode: | Auto |
| White Balance: | Auto |
| Scene Capture Type: | Standard |
| Compression: | JPEG (old-style) |
| Global Angle: | 30 |
| Global Altitude: | 30 |
| Copyright Flag: | False |
| Photoshop Quality: | 12 |
| Photoshop Format: | Optimised |
| Progressive Scans: | 3 Scans |
| XMPToolkit: | Adobe XMP Core 4.1-c036 46.276720, Mon Feb 19 2007 22:40:08 |
| Orientation: | Horizontal (normal) |
| Metadata Date: | 2009:08:03 19:24:02-05:00 |
| Creator Tool: | Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows |
| Format: | image/jpeg |
| Color Mode: | 3 |
| ICCProfile Name: | sRGB IEC61966-2.1 |
| Viewing Conditions Illuminant Type: | D50 |
| Measurement Observer: | CIE 1931 |
| Measurement Flare: | 0.999% |
| Measurement Illuminant: | D65 |
| Color Transform: | YCbCr |
| Flash Return: | No return detection |
| Flash Mode: | Off |
| Flash Function: | False |
| Flash Red Eye Mode: | False |
Be good,
-Dave
|
