#Posing Tips for Cosplay Photos (Part 1 of many)
–*WJS Cosplay Photography Blog*–
For the past year I’ve been holding panels across California conventions, the main one being a panel on posing for cosplayers as that seemed to be something I felt I could contribute to. It’s a 90-minute panel in which I go over some personal theories specific to cosplay posing along with several cosplay models I work with. At the end we do a studio shoot right in the panel room with my camera streaming live to a large projection screen so people can see theory meeting practice in front of them. I’ve uploaded a copy of the powerpoint portion in this link and on my facebook for those who attended, but for those who can’t make it I’ll be writing out key portions on this blog, as the meat of the panel was visually demonstrated and verbally presented.
In later entries I’ll head into the actual mechanics of building a pose, but for Part 1 I’ll be focusing on the important mental and inspirational foundations. With that, I’ll lead off with the most important tip…
Cosplay: There will be Caek, Photo: WJS Cosplay
After a few rounds holding the panel it was obvious from the feedback that the most common barrier to being able to pose the way folks would like to pose is shyness. Just plain shyness.
I’m not a therapist so I’m not going to address overcoming shyness itself. But what I can say is that feeling awkward in front of the camera is normal, understandable and just about universal. The beautiful thing is that I’ve shot with many, many people who got used to the camera after a single session and would stun you with what they could do in front it now. Heck, if you want an example of a shy, awkward dork who learned to embrace performing in front of the camera, here you go:
Shyness during a photoshoot is understandable but I won’t lie that it can be a significant hindrance during a shoot. Cosplay photography is a little different than other genres because of the fictional material it pulls from and when translating these 2D characters it usually works out best if you GO BIG. Let me elaborate on that.
When I shoot with cosplayers I can tell they sometimes feel awkward doing the big poses I guide them towards. And I can empathize. What I like to say to them and during my panel is this:
“If it feels like you’re doing 120% in real life, it might almost be 90% on camera.”
When I direct narrative projects, I rarely ask my actors to overact. But for cosplayers? All the time. “Over act. Over exaggerate. Go over the top, it barely shows up on camera. If you feel you’re overdoing it, you might be doing it right.” On those rare instances they actually do look awkward because they were able to go overboard, no problem. I cheer them on for achieving something few ever do on these shoots and ask them to pull it back 10%. That’s it. And then we know we’re pulling out the most we can from them and without fail those are the shoots when the cosplayers will comment about just how much more fun the photoshoot was than they were expecting. Go big.
2) Look for inspiration in all the wrong places
Cosplay: Junkers Cosplay, Photo: WJS Cosplay
To this day I still have not seen an episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. When I was sketching out the concepts for this shoot I watched a few clips off youtube to help me get a feel for the characters and think of appropriate poses. I noticed that Star Platinum (the big blue guy) was inarticulate, was characterized by rage and was essentially Jojo’s pokemon, ready to attack on command. That reminded me of an archetypal character that I was more familiar with.
When I went searching for images of the Hulk, I found one where he was bursting out of the ground in a double bicep pump while growling towards the sky. In case you’re not familiar with the double bicep pose:
What I liked was the symmetry of it. And so I got the idea of Star Platinum rushing forward as though just unleashed by Jojo’s command. I obviously didn’t want the cosplayer literally standing there with a double bicep pose (because that would be kind of cheesy), so I turned it sideways and asked him to lean forward to get that sense of forward motion. And that’s how that shot came about. It’s no longer the Hulk’s pose, but that Hulk image was the starting point before I put my own twists on it and before the cosplayer naturally and unconsciously put his twists on that. And so you end up with a pose that you can call your own. Another example was this pose:
Coming from this pose flipped around:
And combined with the hands of this pose:
My background is in the martial arts with a special place in my heart for the crazy Kung-Fu styles. It’s what led me to film and acting and to photography. And so my style is heavily colored by it. If you’re a ballet dancer, an aerial contortionist, a power lifter, whatever, there’s always something you can draw from and make your own. You don’t have to only pose exactly the way the character is often drawn. When I’m lost, I very often just google up some Kung-Fu images for inspiration and I pick bits and pieces of things I like, twisting it around all the while.
When I’m planning a shoot, I often ask the cosplayer to look up a few reference poses they like and save them on their phone. As expected, just about everyone chooses the signature pose of the character. I have zero problems with that and I prefer to take those shots first as “safeties” so we can be sure the cosplayer will have something memorable for their cosplay. But for the more unique shots I often pull from a lot of sources. I just make sure it stays true to the spirit of the character. For those looking at the powerpoint I uploaded, that’s what those “challenges” reference images are. For the demonstration shoot I asked the cosplayer to try to re-interpret those random images off the internet to their cosplay.
Here are some samples straight off my camera taken at those panels after my models got a few seconds to glimpse at the samples.
It certainly helped that I had very talented models like Ashe and Brinni, but it also helps to just have a starting point to jump off of. Which leads me to my next point…
3) What’s Your Motivation?
I touched upon this point in a previous post here. The whole, “What’s my motivation?” line is used as a kind of joke about actors nowadays. But that doesn’t make it any less helpful for you as a cosplayer to give something to the camera. Finding your motivation doesn’t just mean pondering over the deep-seated truth of your belly button. In this shot I simply gave Ashe a basic scenario to work with. It was literally something short like, “You’re patrolling the border as a sentry guard.” As she walked along the treeline I might’ve given her a little something more like, “You just heard a twig snap,” giving her reason to focus her gaze out and ready her hand onto the sword.
Again, very basic stuff, but it’s immensely useful in helping a cosplayer orient themselves to what the photographer is trying to get out of the shot and to come up with interesting “poses” naturally. Give yourself a scene and a lot of the posing will handle itself.
This next shot was shot in the rain. After almost an hour of hiding from it, for our last shot we wanted to just jump out and use the rain. The directions I gave her was to place one hand on her chest, close her eyes and just feel the raindrops falling on her.
Not even a full plot right there, but giving something to focus on, some kind of motivation often cleans up a lot of details in the posing. The point is, when you can, try to direct rather than pose. It leads to more natural poses and has bonus elements of pulling a narrative into it, making the images more interesting. It also leads into the idea of creating a photoset, a topic I’ll touch upon later down the road. Much later. For my next entry I’ll head into some “Go-to” poses for the folks who are starting off and just need a foundation and some time in front of the camera. Make sure to follow me on facebook, reblog if you enjoy my entries and follow this tumblr for the next installments! =)
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