San Diego Comic-Con 2011

[inkista]

Sorry I'm late this year. But I was pretty wiped each day and it's taken me a while to get stuff up on Flickr. I have probably shot nothing of interest to anyone but me. But c'est la vie. It was more crowded than ever this year, and if you wanted to go to a media panel in Ballroom 20 or Hall H, that was pretty much all you were doing that day. I couldn't even get into the Bob's Burger's panel (I got there an hour before hand, eyeballed the line at twice the room capacity, and gave up then and there).

I also may not be able to attend next year, due to changes in the pre-registration process (basically, you had to line up by 6:30am, or you weren't getting a membership for next year. I live about 45 minutes away from downtown, and that doesn't count the time it would take to park and walk the five city blocks to the Hyatt). Grump. 31 years of unbroken attendance up in smoke.

Anyhoo. I finally found a new way of taking the infinite-tunnel shot this year. [grin]



I brought a speedlight and a tiny 9" softbox with me to Con, overcame my shyness of shooting strangers, and begged Karen Berger to let me take her shot when I spotted her in the hallway. Mike Carlin clowned around gloriously and made the shot. If you don't know who Karen Berger is, she's the DC editor who brought over the entire "British Invasion" in the mid-80s including Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, and Grant Morrison. Karen was the editor on a lot of their titles. She's one classy lady and worth getting to hear stories from if you're a comics fan.



My friend Ivy pointed out that someone had pasted Doctor Who artwork over the little walking man on the crosswalk signals all along Harbour Drive. Each one of a different doctor. I probably should have gotten a shot of the fourth doctor one with his little colored scarf, but the crowd kept jostling me along. Still a nice little touch.



Ok, ok. Big Media Panel shot. I had to pano three shots off the jumbotrons, I was sitting so damn far back in the room: Game of Thrones panel: L to R: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, Jason Momoa, Emilia Clarke, David Benioff, D.B. (Dan) Weiss, and at the podium, our moderator, George R.R. Martin.



You'll probably find this more rewarding if you're interested in what happened in the room.

[Tito87]

I like the tunnel shot. I think it can be of interest to some people.

[inkista]

It's been over 24 hours! I can torture you some more!!

GRRM asked Coster-Waldau if anything had prepared him for the internet controversy about his nose, and Coster-Waldau told us about the time a lighting guy said to him how he'd taken one look at Coster-Waldau's nose and knew he was screwed.



You know I have to do a little planet. This time, it was of Larry Marder's table in Artists' Alley, because I've been a Beanworld fan since it was first published in the mid-80s.



The 2-story t-shirt booth.


Preview Night line to get onto the floor.

[inkista]

Oh, goodie. Nobody's looking. Sunday, we're all beat to hell, anyway. Which is why it's Kid's Day!



I went to the Cartoon Voices II panel, and possibly the best moment was before the panel when a little girl ran up the aisle with drawings of Goofy and Max for the actors who do their voices (Bill Farmer in the center there, and Jason Marsden on the right. And yes, that's Laraine Newman looking on.



Found Peter David as I was wandering about on the dealer's room floor, and he allowed me to entourage him. This is Peter with his new iPhone taking a picture of himself in front of the life-sized Dexter bobble-head. It scared me. I didn't want it in the shot.



And then I had to rush off from Comic-Con and head over to the Mysterious Galaxy signing for A Dance With Dragons with George R.R. Martin.

[Krusty79]

It almost feels like a different thread now that I've gone through your whole post (), but I agree that tunnel shot is really cool.

[RichardTaylor]

Super series.
My faves are the tunnel and the Mike Carlin/Karen Berger shot.

[inkista]

Krusty--my main problem at Con is that I want to shoot everything in about half a dozen different ways. I always end up with a complete hodgepodge of shots, none of which go together very well.

Richard--Thanks! They're my faves, too, which is why they top the thread.

Ooo! Two people replied and I can add more! These come from when I ran around in the front hall with my little softbox trying to work out how to run'n'gun. I had a lot of fun, but screwed up a lot, given that even costumers aren't used to someone taking a series of shots. They all figure you just want to do a single snapshot and move on.

The Security Guys (who were very amused I wanted THEIR picture). Definitely screwed up and got too much flash vs. ambient (and at this distance, the softbox looks a lot like hard flash):



Got closer to doing something cool with this guy dressed as Iron Fist. You can see how the abrupt drop-off from the little softbox works so you can do slightly noirish shots with it.



Sheer dumb luck I found some curtains with sunshine across them to use as a background. Again, not exactly what I wanted, but closer to something nice and properly lit. Also, I loved the blend of period and Doctor Who with an original costume. The fun part was how excited she and her friends got at the shots I was getting.



Jackpot with a steampunk costumer. She had a Canon dSLR with an L lens on it, so I thought she might be a little more receptive. And then the VALS I recruited from the folks snapping her picture had a dad along who told me he was a photography student, so I gave an unsolicited running commentary. I probably should have paid a bit more attention to my composition and shot her from lower down and the light's a bit hot at the top, (I hope I fixed those on the shot I did on her camera) but I'm still happy. Given the ten second window, I think I did ok.



I learned a lot and had a great time, and I'm beginning to get why Strobist stuff is so addictive, even with minimal gear. The funniest part of this is that an hour or so, I was ready to put my gear away and go back to just available light, when I saw a guy roaming the hall--and his wife had the radio-triggered octobox on a boom. I yelled at him, "That's cheating, bringing your own lightstand!" And he took one look at me, pointed at my little softbox, and yelled back, "I used to do that, but my left arm would get SOOOO tired!"

Yes. Strobists are everywhere.

[Sp3ed_Demon]

Loving this thread, great shots! =)

I'm glad you got up the nerve to photograph costumers, I've been going to Dragon*Con for years and if there's one thing I've learned (especially since several of my friends dress up for it), it's that they wear them for the attention as much as they do for the fun of it. In fact, my friends have been known to get...not offended, but disappointed maybe, when someone with a camera looks at them and moves on without taking a photo.

I'm sorry to hear you won't be making it back to C*C next year, that's unfortunate! Will the following year be a possibility or is it one of those deals where if you're not at the con, you're not getting tickets for the next one?

Love the pics, keep 'em coming!

[inkista]

Loving this thread, great shots! =)

Thanks.

I'm glad you got up the nerve to photograph costumers, I've been going to Dragon*Con for years and if there's one thing I've learned (especially since several of my friends dress up for it), it's that they wear them for the attention as much as they do for the fun of it. In fact, my friends have been known to get...not offended, but disappointed maybe, when someone with a camera looks at them and moves on without taking a photo.

Yeah. I know. I used to hang with costumers back in the day. If there's one group of folks who know how to pose, it's them.

My problem is that for a majority of photographers, the only shots they'll take at Comic-Con are of costumers. Which is kind of like photographing a gay pride parade and only taking pics of the drag queens. It's an obvious good photo, but it's not representative of the subject as a whole.

I'm sorry to hear you won't be making it back to C*C next year, that's unfortunate! Will the following year be a possibility or is it one of those deals where if you're not at the con, you're not getting tickets for the next one?

Kinda. The privilege of pre-registering on-site is only for those how have memberships for the con. You don't get in; you can't pre-register. Tickets for the general public tend to sell out about ten minutes after they go on line. Assuming the server doesn't crash. I do have some friends who might let me work for their table next year, but then roaming the floor is going to be a bit more limited...

Love the pics, keep 'em coming!

(grin), Well, I'm pretty much done with putting up pics here. But my Flickr sets for Comic-Cons 2005-2011 are here: Collection: Cons

I'll leave you with a prize photo I snagged on film with my Oly 10 back in 1991:



Neil Gaiman and Scott McCloud looking ridiculously young back in the days when you could just walk into any panel you wanted at Comic-Con without waiting in any silly lines. And a bit of my Comic-Con badge collection:



The green xeroxed one with the Rick Geary artwork on it was from my first year: 1981. These days they're all the barcoded one with the eye logo. Really really boring. You used to get to choose which artwork you wanted.

[statichash]

Great shots! That tunnel shot is pretty awesome! I took a daylight shot of it, but yours is 10 fold better from the composition and glow of the neon lights! I like the Dr. Who girl and your homage to the many years of attendance - that's so awesome that you've been going for that many years, how cool is it that you've been able to see the event evolve into what it's become. Kudos!

I was wiped out by Saturday night, I didn't get to go to too many panels - sounds and looks like you got to enjoy a lot of them. I only went to Thursday's in hall H during the Pee-Wee Herman panel - through the end. Saw lots of cool celebs, previews for upcoming films and stuff in the works!