On March 13, 2010, BlankLogo Photography attended the wrap party for the finale of ‘There Will Be Brawl’. Much of the cast and crew dropped by The Good Hurt to share some drinks and rock to live music performed by the Megas. Ashley and I got a chance to hang with Matt Mercer, Lillyxandra and the rest of the cast, as well as other video and internet celebs, like COIN-OP TV and The RadNerds. The Megas played an awesome set, the DJs were fantastic and the people were awesome.

My good friend, Bert Le, with whom I participated in a gallery event earlier this month put on a cosplay gathering in cooperation with Mikomicon on January 30. This time around it was just a pre-gathering to get the word out. Ashley and I arrived pretty early (11am), which is especially rare considering the gathering spot is 50 miles from the house. Since the gathering only started at 10, there were only a handful of attendees already in attendance, including Bert.

We hung around for a bit, feeling a bit out of our element not having anyone to chat with. So I pulled out the camera and Ashley and I wandered off to take a few more pictures of her Perona costume. We got in a few shots, but were still warming up when a few photographers (Raul Sandoval, Abbot Wang, Eric Ng) I wanted to chat with arrived. So we put away the gear, grabbed the lunch that Bert provided and sat down to have a talk. The topic of discussion is a Secret Project I’m working on with a few other photographers, Ashley and a writer I know. (More on this in a later post.)

After lunch and our talk, Jo arrived in her Rydia cosplay. The costume had been accidentally damaged by a friend of ours and Jo remade a large portion of the costume from scratch so she could wear it to gathering since I requested it. Her wonderful costume previously provided my favorite photo from Fanime 2009. I set a goal for myself before she arrived to try and top that original photo of her costume. We spent a few hours total over the course of the afternoon shooting in different locations, trying to get a better shot, but as hard as I tried, I don’t think I was able to do it. It doesn’t help that the original photo is one of my recent favorites…topping it will be difficult. Nevertheless, we came away with a bunch of new photos of her costume that came out beautifully.

Fanime 2009

Otaku Rehab Pre-Gathering

Our group kept apart from the main gathering for the most part. We didn’t interact much with the other photographers or cosplayers, but we had a Hell of a good time during the afternoon and a bunch of us headed out for a celebratory dinner after the gathering that just kept the fun going.

Ashley and I look forward to the full Otaku Rehab Gathering in May. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, you can find full details on their website http://www.otaku-rehab.com/!

Due to having a free day on Thursday and a cancelled shoot as well, we decided to put Ashley into one of her costumes and head out for a Cosplay shoot. There’s only a couple costumes left that we haven’t done a shoot for and of those, we chose her Thriller Bark Perona from One Piece. Figuring out a location wasn’t easy. We wanted something run down and, as Ashley liked to say, decrepit. I was considering UCLA, though I don’t think anything on campus actually looks like it’s falling apart, but we would have to make do. Ashley suggested Griffith Park and I remembered the abandoned Los Angeles Zoo hidden somewhere within the Park. After some Google research I had a bit of an idea on where we could find it, though no one specified just how to get to it.

Our friend, Lex, joined us for the outing and we headed north. Traffic was a pain and we ended up getting a little lost, though with the help of a citizen walking in the park we were able to reorient and after a short while arrived. The sun was already pretty low on the horizon, hidden most of the time behind the mountain. We explored quickly and found a location here and there that would contribute to an awesome shot.

We shot inside an old cage/kennel to start with. The long, dark stairwell looked amazing and was actually the most difficult location to light properly. I ended up shooting with natural light for the shot and getting a silhouette. We shot in the open after that, including a dried up riverbed, next to a rotting tree stump and a few other dead spots. All in all the locations ended up varying wonderfully, but tying up great. We ended with a trick shot and one final take before a pink sunset that matched Perona’s hair.

Check out the set by clicking the photo…

On January 16, BlankLogo paired up with Bert Le to put on a one night show in the Santiago Lofts/Art District in Santa Ana, CA. Each of us brought selected works from our portfolio to show in public for the first time…in print! Finally the photography that has been shown online-only for so long had the chance to come off the digital walls and mingle with people who might otherwise never happen upon this little site!

We got started a bit later in the day than I would have liked, but we got down to Santa Ana with plenty of time to spare. Spencer Hoo, the gallery’s owner, gave us a quick tour and allowed us to choose our respective spots. Bert chose one wall and I got the other, which was more than enough space for the amount of work I’d brought with me. We each took a few hours to set up, but that left us with plenty of downtime before the Art Walk officially got underway.

Bert busied himself upstairs with preparing the goodies for the night. Not only was he putting on half a gallery show, but he was catering it too… He made several wonderful Asian dishes and showed Ashley a few tricks around the kitchen at the same time.

The crowds started trickling in around 6:30, swelled around 8:00 and finally vanished entirely by 9:30. The night was a great success. The Radnerd photo was easily the most popular attraction on the wall, with lots of oohs and ahhs and lots of people wanting to know how and where it was shot. The new business card based on the same photo was also a hit and lots of them vanished over the course of the evening.

After the crowds died down and we closed the gallery up for the night and headed back upstairs to Spencer’s loft for a few drinks and the remnants of Bert’s cooking. The party wrapped at midnight, the remaining art was repacked and readied for transport home.

Overall it was a wonderful experience; one that we will have to repeat. We’ll put on another One Night in either February or March. Stay tuned!

- Mike

The first convention of the new decade has come and gone…and it was a blast!

BlankLogo Photography has officially become a team effort. With Ashley assisting me for the first time, the work was a lot easier and the resulting product such an improvement over recent work. Every shot, every pose seemed golden. We look forward to attending future conventions as a team and spreading the cosplay photography goodness around to everyone like a full jar of grape jelly slopped onto a little piece of toast!! That’s goodness that just spills off the edges and gets all over the place!

As with most recent conventions, BlankLogo primarily concentrated on friends, further deepening those relationships that we cherish so much and much the same as with Anime Expo and other conventions, was introduced to new cosplayers via those same friends. So once again we grew our list of cosplayers without needing to hunt down random people in the halls. We so prefer this method that we’ll pretty much set on sticking with it from here on out. Quality over quantity, baby!

As for a recap of the actual con? We hung out with the same cosplayers as usual and attended any number of room parties, as well as visiting the now infamous Mariella’s Taco Truck (those of you in the know, go “Mmmm”!) The convention was a Hell of a lot of fun and I can’t say I’ve enjoyed Anime Los Angeles this much in past years. I’m still not a fan of the LAX Marriott – from a photographer’s point of view, anyway.

Photos from Day 1 of the convention have just gone up! Check em out! Day 2 should be up tomorrow evening to finish out the event. Stay tuned!

And finally, you’ll notice as the days wear on that with the coming of the new year, BlankLogo, too, is changing. New photos will have a new, updated logo/watermark applied to them…not sure if we’ll be going back to update the older photos or not. The new logo will be going up around the site shortly and elsewhere. Thanks to Jeremy Peter of Atomaton Designs for the spiffy logo!

Just wanted to post a quick Happy New Year now that the festivities are quieting down. 2009 is finally done and gone. BlankLogo Photography is looking ahead into 2010. We expect a great many things this year. Check back for more regular updates and more of the great work you’ve come to expect from us! Much love to all our subjects and fans!

So, let me start off with an apology for anyone who has been waiting for their photos from PMX – they are a wee bit late.

PMX 2009 was my fourth year, though I was only able to attend for one day, Friday. Sadly, due to getting a new job, I was unable to go on Saturday, which I would have preferred or Fri/Sat, which would have been ideal. Regardless, I made the best of it, showing up “early” with Ashley in her Anya Alstreim from Code Geass cosplay. We didn’t wander around for long before bumping into Bert, aka Anime Chef and shortly after that, Raul! The four of us explored the lobby, the back stairway and other nooks and crannies of the LAX Hilton, all the while taking shots of Ashley’s costume. Two hours later, other friends began trickling into the convention and we wrapped up the Code Geass shoot.

After a not-too-brief, but enjoyable lunch (about 20 of us took over part of Carl’s Jr down the street from the hotel), we jumped into the final shoot of the day. Some of my favorite cosplayers, Jo, Louis and the rest of my normal cosplay crew were ready for a night shoot around the hotel. The photographers split up a bit at this point, but Ashley assisted me with lighting and taking some photos for the site. The second two-hour shoot of the day covered Bleach and BlazBlue characters and resulted in even more cool additions to the site.

Looking forward to PMX 2010 and attending for at least 2 days. I’m also looking ahead to Anime LA in January. As I’m still working the new job into my schedule, I’m hoping to be able to get two days off for that convention. Here’s looking forward to January!

The 2009 Spike TV Scream Awards have come and gone, but the excitement, glamor and beautiful faces are here to stay. BlankLogo Photography, in association with COIN-OP TV attended the Scream Awards red carpet at the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park before the show. Big names included Christina Ricci, Keith Richards, Dave Navarro, Karl Urban and Stan Lee. Click the thumbnail below to see the full gallery!

I was asked a few weeks ago to join an upcoming movie production. The cast and crew had already been assembled, but they needed an on-set photographer to take behind-the-scenes stills for the site and eventual DVD release.  Once the details were worked out, I signed on and waited for the first night of shooting.

Since this was a night shoot, there were many challenges to overcome. There was little to no light in the shooting area as the director wanted the film to look desolate and isolated. The lack of light meant shooting at the limits of my equipment (no flash is allowed during actual shooting). The resulting photos are going to look a lot grainier than usual, but considering this is a low-budget horror thriller, it actually feels appropriate. The nights were long – due to the large cast of horror villians involved, hours of makeup were required.  It was cold outside and the temperature continued to drop as the night grew on into the wee hours of the morning when few people are awake, let alone outdoors.

All the problems along the way were dealt with, however, and the production came to a speedy conclusion.  The film has been edited and will go live shortly on the official website: http://www.hellywood.tv.  About 100 production stills were chosen for inclusion on the site/disc release.  I’m posting about half of those here on BlankLogo.  Check out the photo section by clicking the thumbnails below and then head on over to the official website to the movie!

Okay, that whole daily update thing I was doing…it might be dead! Haha…I actually enjoy doing short daily updates from the convention (and I noticed I received a significant boost both during and after Fanime as people were already Googling for “fanime” and related topics before the con was even over), but it’s just a matter of not having the time. Why?

Over the last few cons, my con habits have changed. I think it started back with Phoenix Comic-Con back in January. I went with friends Mathias and Austin. Mathias and I hung around that con much later than I normally do. Fanime seems to have made that change permanent. I was out until 3 or 4am every night! It was a whole new con-going experience and I loved it. I managed to squeeze in a few daily updates (from my BlackBerry Storm, no less…you try updating a full blog post from a touchscreen phone!) Anime Expo 2009 continued that trend. I never made it home Saturday night…Andy (who crashed at my place a few miles from the Los Angeles Convention Center) and I final came home bleary eyed and exhausted at 6:30am on Sunday morning! We did that every night of AX and got a few hours sleep before doing it all again. There was no time for a site update. Maybe if I get a laptop in the future and can update during the occasional downtimes. We’ll see what happens at Comic-Con.

Another, even more important change is to my photographic habits. No, they haven’t decreased. If anything, I was even more hardcore at Fanime and Anime Expo in taking photos from dusk til dawn. On Friday I started at noon and finished after midnight (with a few breaks and one short room party (thanks to Peter, Bert, Trevor, Chloe and Bobby BTW) in between). The change is that I’m only taking photos of friends now. It seems I’ve given up walking the con floor and asking random cosplayers for photos. Honestly, I don’t miss that at all. It was always hit and miss at best. I shot nearly 800 photos this year, more even than Fanime, but they were all friends or friends of friends. I continue to meet and shoot new cosplayers, but all of them are via introduction from someone I already know. This system is actually working out great! So, yeah, I missed shooting BumbleBee and Dhalsim (both EPIC costumes you should Google), but I shot a bunch of epic photos of cosplayers I already know and love and got to hang out with great friends at the same time! For me, that’s win-win!

Now, as for the actual con…it was a blast! What a great time. The strangest thing is none of my fun was really Anime Expo-related. I never really got to see the Dealer Hall (I walked a bit of it with Andre on Sunday before it closed), skipped the AMVs, the Masquerade, AX-sponsored events, the dances at the Westin, etc. I just took tons of photos and chilled with friends, hit a room party and played Ninja again! And somehow, I managed to stay busy virtually every second of the convention. My trusty Storm nearly died every night despite a fresh charge each day. The battery, which lasts about 2 days with regular use ran down to 5% power on Friday. I had texts and calls coming in every minute or two and was lining up shoots faster than I could handle them, which sadly, meant I couldn’t find the time to hang with some friends at the con, but I wouldn’t change a single minute if I could do it all over again!

I’m quite a bit behind on photos at the moment, both paid and unpaid work, so I’ll try and post a few small updates here and there as I did with the Fanime Gallery.

I also have a complete daily breakdown posted over on my DeviantART page. If you’re interested in the bits and pieces of my weekend, head over to my DA page for the extremely long version. You have been warned!