Neil Creek – Photographer

Been a while eh? :) Life has been busy, tumultuous and interesting lately to say the least (more on that in future posts). My inspiration has been elsewhere for a while, but I though it was time to return to the blog. I’ve got lots to catch up on, but I thought I’d start with a fun and colourful photo shoot I recently went to.

You may remember that I enjoy the “cosplay” subculture, and regularly do photo shoots with my friends in costume, and with other photographers. One late Autumn weekend, we gathered at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in unseasonably good weather, with the cosplayers dressing as characters from Vocaloid.

The Bowl is a fantastic location, as it’s open and accessible to the public most of the year, except when the rare event is on. It’s under cover, has a huge open and flat space, and is rarely occupied by so many people that you can’t set up a few light stands. It’s also got a variety of interesting backgrounds, such as the seats, blank cement walls, stairs, railings, and the structure of the giant “sail” over the bowl. There’s great photo shoot potential there! Melbournian photographers, check it out :)

I went over the top with colour, which befit the costumes, and gelled flashes on the walls to use as backgrounds. I also went for deliberately dramatic lighting, with a pair of bare flashes at 45 degrees behind the subjects, pointing back at them, for a kicker highlight down the side of each face. I initially didn’t use any front light (you can see more shots with the variations I tried in the full gallery linked below), to have a silhouette look. For other photos, I added a front light, at camera right, to illuminate the subject. I also brought the kicker lights into the frame, turning them more into rim lights, in order to have dramatic lens flares in the shot.

At one stage during the afternoon, a large group of parkour enthusiasts (also known as free running, a kind of urban acrobatics) showed up at the bowl to practice their jumps and moves. These guys (I only saw the guys anyway) were amazingly acrobatic, and I hoped I’d be able to get some photos of them. They took the initiative, however, and said they loved the cosplayers and asked if they could have some photos with them. Naturally, we obliged! I got a couple of test shots while the cosplayers were mucking around, such as the one below.

But then I got THIS. It’s one of my favourite photos ever! I was so excited when I saw it on the back of the camera. The timing, and so many other elements were just perfect.

After that, we headed up the hill at the back of the seating area, into the sun, and played with using the sun as a back light and a single flash at the front.

I also took this panorama :) Click FULLSCREEN for the best effect.

Have a look at the rest of the photos from the meet here: http://neilcreek.smugmug.com/Costuming/Vocaloid-Shoot-100515