Devious Journal Entry

KATSUCON 19 REPORT

Photos have been uploaded to my Facebook account, if you are looking for photos of yourself or your friends at the con, in the masquerade, world cosplay summit, or if I did a photoshoot of you, you can find them at these links:

Katsucon 19 Photoshoots



Katsucon 19 World Cosplay Summit

Katsucon 19 Convention Shots / Hall Photography

THURSDAY:

If you follow  me on Facebook you know about my first hand reporting of the problem with the gazebo area not being allowed to Katsucon people. The area was being used by a Jewish Youth organization by the name of BBYO. I spent most of Thursday trying to shift my photoshoot schedule to another location by getting in contact with all my models. Like most photographers at Katsucon, the default meeting location for shoots is usually the Gazebo. When that was taken away, it messed up alot of photography schedules. While doing that I was reporting on Facebook on what is actually happening at Katsucon to distinguish rumor from fact as best I could. If you were following  the mess online, you would of found alot of conflicting information. Here is what I can say based on being there:

I was told by hotel staff / security to leave the Gazebo area  if I am not with the BBYO group.
I saw cosplayers entering the Gazebo area and was told by  the hotel staff / security to leave the area.
I saw other photographers being barred from the area.
I spoke with the hotel staff and BBYO staff, they informed me that the area was reserved and paid for by that  organization so it belongs to their group. However when they are not using it, it is available to other hotel visitors to use as long as it does not cause a problem for  BBYO. I asked for a program schedule to determine when we  maybe able to use the area, neither the hotel staff or the BBYO staff was able to give me any information on that.

I updated  everyone on Facebook with the above information.

Due to the  chaos created by  this, I was only able to meetup with half of my shoots scheduled that  day. At the end of the night I was exhausted and need to get ready for Friday.

FRIDAY:

In the morning I met up  with for our Mami shoot. It was pretty good shoot for the first daylight shoot of Katsucon for me. Due to running out of luggage room and hotel rules on professional photography equipment for  non-press attendees, I did not bring my lighting equipment such as umbrellas, softboxes, and reflectors. However the photos still came out quite good. One of the shots  with sky and water as a backdrop came out exceptionally well - when I first took the shot the lighting looked too harsh but after some tweaking in Lightroom and Photoshop it came out terrific. I will upload this in dA soon.

In  the afternoon, I got into my much anticipated Heathcliff cosplay. It took  about over an hour to get ready as I had to put it all on by myself, some of the straps I had to leave unfastened because I could not do it myself. However everyone I met told me how amazing it was and random people shouted out to me  their  compliments  as I walked by.



Unfortunately I was not able to make it to the Sword Art Online group meetup that day but was able to meetup with my friends who were also in their Sword Art Online cosplays. I went up to the Gazebo area to see if its available, despite BBYO not appearing to be in the area, the hotel staff still barred us from the area. It wasn't until after 6PM that we were allowed back in. My friends and I were meeting up in the area to try to get some Gazebo shots, but around 8PM  the hotel staff told us to clear out without any explanation. So we went to the lobby area to hangout for a  bit while waiting for a photographer friend to become available to shoot us. We ended getting lots of photos taken of us by everyone walking by. In the end the photographer could not make it in time before I had to leave to setup and do a photoshoot for someone else. So I ran back to my hotel room, got out of Commander Heathcliff and brought my photography equipment to do a night shoot for 's Sakura Taisen shoot. It was a good night shoot. You can find it in the photoshoot Facebook link and I will upload a shot to dA.

SATURDAY

I woke up early and got into my Abel Nightroad cosplay, then headed out to do  a Sailor Moon group shoot. Initially I could not find them as I was looking for them in the foutain  area, but then decided to check the Gazebo area. To my surprise they split the area in half to allow Katsucon attendees to use the Gazebo area, the ballroom doors side was still barred from us though. It was still a good compromise however. I found my Sailor Moon group but there were 2 or 3 other photographers shooting them. Finding this unexpected disappointment and that I locked myself out of my hotel room, I excused myself out of the shoot  to get myself another room key. This gave me opportunity to go around photographing other cosplayers that I would had otherwise missed Saturday morning.

Noon I went back to my room to get ready to do a photoshoot that I was looking forward to, but then I got a message that she was too sick to make it. While disappointing it was understandable,  so I took that time to do more convention photography. This lead to a series of fortunate  even where I met some AMAZING French Canadian Trinity Blood cosplayers (who later on won Katsucon Judges award for best craftmanship and etc), then we got to be  in an Ackson Creatives video clip (hopefully he'll use one day lol ). I got pulled over by a photographer who wanted to do a shoot of me, while we  were shooting an AMAZING Asta (by Bethii-Chan) walked by with her photographer and  we got a couple quick shots together. Afterwards I ran into some familiar faces in the Gazebo area where we organized another Trinity Blood group for a quick Gazebo shoot:



With that done, I had to quickly run back to my room to change out my lens on my camera to for telephoto shots. Fortunately I had a VIP pass so I did not had to wait in line and got a seat near the front row to take some good shots of WCS.  The number of entries this year was smaller, and over all I would say they were better. I think the contestant saw how last year's group won with an inventive use of their prop that almost all the groups incorporated creative ways of using their props into their skits. My favorite was Ashe's Fate/Zero  skit, which they won runner up.



The Masquerade was  quite good with a number of humoring skits. The funniest was probably the ramen eating noodle contest.



After everyone got their awards, I went back to my room to recharge my equipment and myself. I walked around a little bit to get some more photos but it looked like most of the cosplayers have shed their cosplays into their rave clothes or have gone for dinner or took a break or went to a hotel party. With nothing to do I went back to my room and got some dinner by myself (this is normal for me as I always room alone) then went  to get some sleep.

SUNDAY

Today is packing all your stuff and get out of your room day. I packed everything that morning and after stowing it away I went on my cosplay hunt to photograph more cosplayers. I ran into Angela who always have some of the most amazingly sewn costumes:



In the early afternoon I had a shoot with in her Minako cosplay, it was a very good shoot with many gorgeous photos.



Afterwards I ran into some  friends in the Gazebo area and also talked to a couple photographers I know from their work but never met before. Yaya Han made her appearance as we gathered and talked, I got several shots of her in the Gazebo as well as her doing her sword routine in Ackson's Creative and MLZ Studio's videography.

I got some lunch at the hotel's brunch buffet (its pretty much a custom at this point for me to eat their  buffet on Sunday) then met up with some  friends  where  we hung out and chat about what we did and saw at Katsucon,  and of course discuss the latest rumors lol.

In the late afternoon I got on the shuttle to the airport where I met up with a familiar face where we hung out and chatted about things since we last saw each other until the plane arrived. When we arrived back  in Boston, I ran into more familiar faces. There were quite a number of cosplayers  from Boston on that plan trip. This was a good ending for my Katsucon 19 trip. I hope that all the Katsucons in the future will be just as splendid or even greater.

I like to thank everyone that I met and worked with at Katsucon,  also I would like to thank my friends and acquaintances that hung out with me. See you guys at the next con!