The Dream Station @ Arlene's Grocery

Band: The Dream Station
Venue: Arlene's Grocery

Shot a local band, The Dream Station, at Arlene's Grocery. I saw the lighting situation when the previous band played and was pretty confident. When it was time for me to shoot, I found myself not getting the good shots as I'm used to. I really need to upgrade if I'm going to get serious. Tip of the day: never get over confident for a gig.

Lilac at Webster Hall: The Studio

Venue: Webster Hall: The Studio
Date: May 16, 2010

It was J Summit at Webster Hall this Sunday night. My friends, Lilac hosted the show with four other bands. The lighting was very dark and had constantly changing lights. It was a nightmare to shoot without flash. This was one of the nights I wish I had a FX body. Well, at least I had fast glass with me.

I felt in their previous show at Don Hill's, I was very conservative in my shooting style. This time I want to spice it up with different perspectives. My fisheye lens will come in handy. Despite the terrible lighting conditions (tons of people were flashing), I felt I did pretty well. Definitely captured the mood of the place. Some of my favorite shots were of Gabriel Tanaka (bassist), check picture below.

Vocaloid Magnet PV @ BBG

Series: Vocaloid
Characters: Miku, Luka, RinI remember just two years ago, the amount of people cosplaying at Sakura Matsuri equals to the amount of finger and toes I have. At Sakura Matsuri this year in Brooklyn, cosplay has exploded like regular people owning DSLR's. Cosplayers were everywhere and the "regular" people were confused. A few of my cosplaying con friends were there as well in their Vocaloid Magnet PV outfits. We took this opportunity to take some photos in the backdrop of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

The sun was harsh that day, not ideal for taking pictures of people. Fortunately I packed my reflector along. A few of my shots I had someone reflecting light into my subject's face. In one occasion, I had to block sunlight shining on the cosplayer's face. The two lenses I carried with me were the 17-55mm f2.8 and the 50mm f1.4. It was very bright. This day I wish I had a polarizer filter with me to shoot at large aperatures. An interesting thing I found out in post was I was missing focus with my 50mm prime a lot more than usual. Not really sure why this is happening. My shutter speed for most shots were in the 1000's so hand shake wasn't the issue. Am I missing focus because of the shadow DOF? I was shooting center-weighted, that might be it. Not sure what happened, guess I'll have to test this lens again some day. I shot from many different angles, including shooting down from a tree. Got fantastic photos. My advice of the day is; move around and shoot from different angles is key to a good photoshoot.

More pictures from the shoot can be found on my flickr site.

Lilac at Don Hill

Venue: Don Hill
Date: April 18, 2010

Shot Lilac's first show with new bass player, Gabriel Tanaka, last Sunday night at Don Hill's. It was a very relaxed place. Pretty much no management was there. Just a door man, tech guy, and bartender.

The lights weren't that great for their set. Not much incandescent lights on the faces and way too much flashy lights. I shot with one camera with two lenses (17-55 f2.8 and the 50mm f1.4). Some of my favorite shots came back side of the stage of the band overseeing the crowd. I was shooting on manual at first then switched to aperture. By the end of the set I felt like I did a shitting job because constant changing lights. In retrospect, I think I did a decent job shooting Lilac's performance. Here are some samples of their show.

Fashion Meets Finance at Empire Hotel (Rooftop)

A bit late on this post, but here are a few comments on my gig on Fashion meets Finance at Empire Hotel Rooftop last week. This is a good place to chill and have a few drinks with friends. The bar and lounge area is at the rooftop that overseas New York City. There are two outdoors area with comfy couches and chairs. What I don't like about this place is only two elevator leads to the rooftop. Usually there is a long line to go up and leave this place.

The purpose of this after work mingle was to show off new head wear and swimsuit from designers. The build up for the runway was way too big and it all ended way too quickly. I was surprised that there weren't other presentations except for the runway. After that, it was just another night at the club. I got some good pictures though.

Anime Boston 2010

Anime Boston 2010
April 2-4, 2010
Hynes Convention Center & Sheraton Hotel

I've been an attendee of Anime Boston for many years. My first year at AB was in 2004. This was when AB was still held in a hotel! This year I made the jump to staff as a photographer. It was a very exhausting experience, even more so than as an attendee. However, I loved every single minute of it and I plan to return as staff next year.

As a staff photographer had the fortunate opportunity to photograph Japanese guests Nobuo Uematsu and MYM. I enjoyed Nobuo's panel and was overjoyed to hear Final Fantasy 6 was his favorite Final Fantasy game. Had a blast photographing MYM's concert. The best moment was when MYM's cried on stage out of joy and I captured it with my camera. The Video Game Orchestra was a fantasti get for Anime Boston. They played classic pieces from Mario, Silent Hill, Chrono Trigger, and of course Final Fantasy (Nobuo came out to play on keyboards). These were the three highlights of the convention. I was busy running around from panels to varies events all weekend from morning to the end of the day. I miss not having enough time to take pictures of cosplayers while as a staff. I don't regret it though, it's worth giving that up to be staff.

More pictures from the con are still uploading. Here's the link to more Anime Boston photos.

Lelouch (artbook) photoshoot

I was staffing for Anime Boston, but squeezed in a photoshoot with a friend of mine. She cosplayed the artbook version of Lelouch of Code Geass. I'm not familiar with the series yet, but I love the style of this cosplay, so I made time for it.

I had my two camera setup for this shoot, the 17-55 and 70-200 were my glass. We went to a nearby cathedral very close to the convention center as our location. I had a great time shooting and this was one of my best shoots ever (I'm sure the 70-200 played a part in this). I loved the long hallway shots and hope you enjoy them as well.

The shoot only last for 30 minutes because I had to go back for Nobuo Uematsu's panel. Here's the link to the other photos from the shoot: Lelouch artbook shoot