PHOTOS: Sakura-con 2014

Seattle's biggest anime and manga convention, known as Sakura-con, took place on Easter weekend a few weeks ago. Even though I have loved anime for quite some time, this was actually my first year officially attending since the con moved to Seattle from Sea-Tac. Last year, I had just gone for a few hours to take pictures of cosplayers outside. I didn't even have a pass, which you don't need to hang out in the park. I thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures of people who are essentially pretending to be models for a weekend. I've been wanting to shoot portraits of models for a little while now, so doing this was a good starting point.

This year, I attended all three days of Sakura-con and took my camera with me. Weeks before, I placed an announcement on the con's Facebook page that I would be scheduling free private photoshoots for cosplayers on Saturday and Sunday. The response was overwhelming. I guess most photographers charge for private photoshoots, but I just like doing this for fun. Once money is involved, it becomes work.

I ended up booking 10 private photo sessions. The majority of them went really well and I only had one last-minute cancellation and one complete no-show. Below are some select pictures and my thoughts.

My first cosplayer was Alena as Junko Enoshima from the video game turned anime Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. I loved the anime, so a definitely didn't want to miss the chance to shoot a Danganronpa cosplay.

Alena was a great sport and ended up being one of the most viewed in all of my cosplay shoots.

Freeway Park gives many opportunities for different angles. Unfortunately, it start to rain during our shoot, which didn't bother Alena or myself, but it start coming down harder after that. (More Alena here.)

Therefore, my next shoot with Monica as Yoshino from the light novel turned anime Date A Live had to be indoors.

I have never seen read or watched Date A Live, so I'm unfamiliar with the character, but apparently she has a one-eyed rabbit puppet on her arm?

Now, one interesting thing about Monica here is that she spoke with a really high-pitched voice and I assume she was in-character. She even did the voice in a voice message she left me right before we were trying to meet up. (More Monica here.)

Up next is Dawn as Loki. Yes, Dawn is a woman, and yes, she cosplays an amazing Loki. In fact, all of the e-mails I received in response for photoshoots were from females. I kid you not. Not a single male applied for a session. What does that tell you?

Dawn cosplayed specifically as Loki at the end of The Avengers when Thor was taking him back to Asgard. The Loki/Tom Hiddleston fangirls at the con really get a kick out of Dawn's cosplay.

Out of all my cosplayers, Dawn got the most in character. I distinctly remember a girl dressed as Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender asking her for a photo and Dawn played it off like Loki wanted nothing to do with Toph. More of Dawn later. (More Dawn as Loki here.)

The rain cleared up, so my next photoshoot was outside again with a group of League of Legends cosplayers. The girl in the green, April, e-mailed me asking if I'd take photos of her and her friends. League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that has become hugely popular.

Their costumes were great, but I'm unfamiliar with LoL, so I didn't have too many poses for them to try. Whenever this happened, I would do an image search on the characters and have the cosplayers copy poses.

This was a challenging shoot since April could not walk too far due to her crazy hoof heels and her boyfriend in this lion suit could not see. Next year, I will have to make sure that my models have the ability to be mobile. (More April and gang here.)

I was excited for this next shoot with Shirley as Undine Asuna from Sword Art Online, as I'm a big fan of Asuna. I even wore my Asuna lanyard during the entire con.

Sword Art Online was a manga that became a really popular anime series, which will have a second season later this year. I'm really looking forward to it.

Shirley was great, but she was one of those cosplayers who needs to be directed. Took it like a champ, though. (More Shirley here.)

Up next is Jemaica as Sailor Moon, a childhood hero of mine. Jemaica is probably one of the most accurate Sailor Moon cosplayers I have ever seen.

Her set currently has the most views out of any of my cosplay photos. I'm sure it's more for the fact that Sailor Moon is such a popular character, but Jemaica got it down perfectly.

Juliana was with me at the convention on Saturday and she is a huge Sailor Moon fan. Therefore, I think she liked this cosplay shoot the most. (More Jemaica here.)

The is Serena as Ahri from League of Legends, which was my most challenging shoot. The main reason was because Serena was practically immobile due to the size and weight of her costume. She couldn't even go upstairs to the more well-lit areas.

So, I had to make due with the darkness on the first floor and my flash.

I'm honestly pretty disappointed in myself on this session, but I think we got a couple decent shots. (More Serena here.)

Sunday had much better weather, so all of my shoots were outdoors in the sun. It started with Jennilyn and Yasuyoshi as vocaloids Gumi Megpoid and Kaito, respectively.

Vocaloids are basically video game characters who sing in highly computerized autotuned voices. Hatsune Miku is the most famous one. She's even opening for Lady Gaga's current tour.

I demoed the Project DIVA Ƒ game a while back, but couldn't see myself paying full price for it. It is fun though. (More Jennilyn here.)

Next up is Valerie as Ezreal from League of Legends.

See, you can tell that LoL is really popular. I might have to start turning down some of those cosplays next year.

Photoshop lens flare FTW! (More Valerie here.)

Here is Dawn again. Remember, she was Loki earlier, but on Sunday, she was Tom Hiddleston's version of Coriolanus from the Shakespeare play.

Here is a compare shot of Hiddleston (left) and Dawn (right).

I initially turned down shooting this cosplay for Dawn just because I didn't want to favor any one single cosplayer. She plead a strong case mentioning how no one has done this cosplay and that she would be tweeting it to Tom Hiddleston. Knowing what it's like to desire doing something so unique like this, I changed my mind. I'm happy I did. (More Dawn as Coriolanus here.)

My last shoot was actually kind of more impromptu since I had the no-show and cancellation. I saw these three ladies cosplaying as Danganronpa 2 characters and offered to take shots of them.

If you guessed that Danganronpa 2 is a sequel to Danganronpa, then you would be correct. I no nothing about the second game, other than some of the characters.

I love that you can pretty much walk up to anyone, as if you can take their picture, and the answer will always be yes. I have never been turned down for a pic. (More Danganronpa 2 group here.)

That concludes all of my private photoshoot shots, but below are some extras I took of other random cosplayers around Sakura-con.

Awesome Sailor Moon x Doctor Who mash-up is awesome.

Taiga from Toradora. Loved that show. This picture was in the top three search results on Flickr on that Saturday for Sakura-con.

Satsuki Kiryuin and Nonon Jakuzure from Kill la Kill. My favorite show of the year.

Another Kill la Kill cosplay. This time Ryuko Matoi in her pajamas.

The bride witch from Left 4 Dead 2.

Attack on Titan cosplay was certainly the most popular this year. Loved that show last year, however all but one cosplayer looked incredibly accurate.

King Joffrey from Game of Thrones. He was in character and told me to hurry up with the picture. I told him that better keep an eye on that cup of his.

Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask.

FLCL.

A No-Face and Chihiro Ogino from Spirited Away.

Sailor Pluto from Sailor Moon.

The convention itself was a blast. I attended the second half of Friday, during the day on Saturday only to return late Saturday night until 1 a.m., and then all day Sunday. I have no one to talk anime with at home or at work, so this is one place I feel accepted. It's great to be around so many like-minded individuals.

There are so many merchants selling anime goods there. It is the place to be for the latest available in America. Those guys in swimsuits there are pillow cases for the ladies to snuggle up with.

KING 5 news was there doing a report on the con and some of the cosplayers.

Good Smile Company was there selling select Nendoroids. I have three of them. I thought this Mami Tamoe one was cute.

There are a bunch of gaming rooms at Sakura-con. This is the regular console gaming area, but there is also a retro gaming area, arcade gaming area, tabletop gaming area, card gaming area, role-playing gaming area, and mahjong gaming area. There's also a manga library, original video animation music video room, and a four anime viewing theatres. In short, you'll never get bored there.

I am already looking forward to next year, but I do have PAX to look forward to. I might schedule a couple shoots for then, too. To see many, many more pictures of cosplayers and other things at Sakura-con, view this set.

Foto Phriday - 5/9/14

This is my one hundred and second Foto Phriday post. The pictures today are from some birthdays, Easter, soccer, and an abandoned nuclear power plant. Full set with all 90 photos can be viewed here.

I assisted an elderly lady with selling her original Nintendo Entertainment System a few weeks ago. I used to have this, but I think we sold it in a garage sale. Pretty sure you can get more for it now then we did back then, but they still aren't worth much. Speaking of gaming, my favorite video game of late has been Titanfall. Been playing almost every night. If you'd like to watch me play, subscribe to my Twitch channel, or check out the many vids I post on YouTube.

Logan's second birthday was last month and he had a party at his house. It was such a nice day, so all of the kiddos got to play outside.

Logan and his big brother James.

Easter was a little different this year because I attended Sakura-con all weekend (Blog post coming soon). I still managed to take a bunch of pics of the girls in their Easter Sunday dresses before I left.

Juliana and Coral on Easter 2014.

It was fun to watch Coral figure out the Easter Egg hunt. We had been reading a nighttime book where she has to find eggs, so it only took her a couple seconds to realize that we were having her do it in real life.

Juliana is in the middle of her first season of soccer. She's learning the basics of the game and seems to always have a smile on her face while playing.

At this age, they play the girls 3-on-3 while the coaches stand on the field instructing them. I'm the assistant coach, but I got to play head coach at last week's game since our regular one was on vacation. It was a lot of fun and I hope to be the main head coach one day.

My work gave us a great opportunity to visit the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant one day last week. Don't worry about radioactivity; this place was never opened.

I work in video production, so obviously we were there for a purpose. Part of the nuclear facility is leased out to NWAA, or Northwest Audio & Acoustics. NWAA Labs is an independent laboratory providing uniform loudspeaker testing and material testing to the audio, acoustics, and construction industries.

NWAA Labs is led by Ron Sauro, who gave us the tour of his company, as well as the majority of the facility. He was a really interesting guy. One of those people who has had their hand in everything. Kind of like Forrest Gump, but really, really smart.

Ron studied physics and engineering at Stanford University. He played with The Rivieras who created the hit song "California Sun." He was in the Air Force during Vietnam and was a satellite retriever of sorts. He worked for NASA on the Apollo 11. He helped design systems that are even still on the moon today. He designed the acoustical and speaker systems that you hear in Grand Central Station in New York City. The guy has freakin' done it all.

Ron let us walk into one of the steam vent towers. Despite what most people may think, the tall towers you see at nuclear power plants are just vents. The nuclear reactor is actually a smaller cylindrical unit in another building.

The tower is so high, that my 50mm lens could not fit it all in, so this is the best shot I got of the opening. This was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

The echo in this room is just insane and so clear. Check out the video below for an example.

Under the venting tower are support beams and water.

Satsop Nuclear Power Plant was three weeks away from opening before it was shut down after the Three Mile Island accident. The anti-nuclear crowd got the general public scared of the form of energy even though it's the most effective. I don't think the total amount of money wasted on the project is known, but I imagine it's in the billions. The cement alone for construction of these facilities was $440 million, so you can imagine that the steel, designs, and equipment added on to that amount would tip it over the billion dollar range. What a waste.

This is part of the inside of the reactor building. It looks like a haunted building, or a first-person shooter map. Ron mentioned that they recently filmed part of Transformers: Age of Extinction here, so now I kind of want to see it.

Coral's second birthday was on May 2nd, so the family gathered for a private birthday party that night. I think she liked the attention.

Her real birthday party was Elmo themed and we had a bunch of people over to Bethany's parent's house.

There were noodles and pizza at her party. Two of her favorite foods.

David and Sam came to Coral's party and brought their newborn baby, Brooks. He was so quiet and adorable.

I can't believe my little Coral is 2 years old already! She's growing up faster than it feels like Juliana did. To see more pictures from her birthday, Satsop Nuclear Power Plant, soccer, and Easter, view the full set.