u/MrBridge4

I took these photos of my fiance cosplaying Magia Sulfur. It's her favorite character and we barely were able to get the cosplay in time for her birthday (wasn't able to upload them yesterday lol)

Hey guys, these photos are from two separate photoshoots. One in location and another in studio.

Hi everyone!

I was wondering what your journey into cosplay photography has been like.

I started almost a year ago as a hobby. At first I would just walk around conventions doing hallway shoots of cosplays I liked. A couple of months later I upgraded from a Nikon D3300 to a Sony A7 III, and after that I started taking photography much more seriously.

Around my fourth month, I attended a large convention and scheduled several collaboration shoots instead of doing hallway photography. I ended up enjoying those much more. Having dedicated time with each cosplayer, choosing locations together, and not having to rush because of convention traffic completely changed the experience for me.

Since then I've continued investing in better lenses, lighting, and education. I've taken several portrait and Photoshop workshops, and I'm currently enrolled in an intensive four-week Photoshop course because I really want to keep improving.

Most of my recent work has been with my girlfriend, who is also a cosplayer, so I've been able to experiment a lot and develop my style. Now I'm thinking about taking the next step: creating promotional photos and videos so I can start booking paid sessions for the next major convention in November. I've invested a lot of time, money, and effort into this hobby, and I'd love to see if I can turn it into something more.

I'd love to hear about your experiences.

- How long have you been doing cosplay photography?

- Do you mostly shoot hallway photos or planned sessions?

- Do you work mainly through collaborations, paid bookings, or a mix of both?

- How did you start getting booked consistently?

I'd also love to see how everyone has evolved over time, so I'm attaching a few of my first photos alongside some of my most recent ones.

Looking forward to reading your stories!

Hey guys, I wanted to share these photos I took of my girlfriend ✌🏻

She's a big Fern's fan!

Hey everyone! I took these photos of my girlfriend cosplaying as Tayama (Yamada).

This ended up being a completely improvised photoshoot. Our original plan was to shoot in a multi-story parking garage we've used before. The cool thing about that place is that you could just arrive and shoot on any floor that wasn't in use (at least the last 2 floors are always empty), but when we arrived, we were told that photographers were no longer allowed there. We couldn't just go home without any photos, so we grabbed an Uber to another location I knew, mainly because it had these interesting stairs and a moody atmosphere. It turned out to be a great fit for the character.

The photos were taken on a Sony A7 III using 50mm and 85mm lenses. For lighting, I used a single flash with a medium octabox as the key light and a SmallRig LED as a fill light to help avoid stronger shadows.

I hope you enjoy them, and I'm open to hearing your thoughts or feedback!