No Professionals at Colossalcon this year

     A recent spat on Colossalcon's facebook page has hit the photography community hard. It seems there is a moral issue of whether Cosplay photographers should be able to charge for private photo-shoots or not.

     After the post on tumblr, colossalcon quickly updated their policies and rules page to include a section on professional photographers. It states that while photographers who are planing to take paid photo-shoots are still allowed, people looking to receive a free press pass and plan to photograph paid shoots are now banned. Part of their policy now reads, "[T]his whole situation has brought up some questions that we'll have to consider for 2014." Then, in strangely bias wording, the entry mentions certain scenarios and asks "what if" and "is it fair?" Colossalcon's policy states that some photographers make over $1000 but do they really? I asked a staff member and he said that he did know of a case, when asked how or who could possibly make that much he wouldn't comment.

     When researching for this article, there seems to be a heated debate on this issue I never knew existed. I think it's because I knew paid photo shoots existed but never paid any attention to them. I never charge for shoots. The one time I did cosplay, I was part of a paid shoot with a friend, but he paid for the entire shoot himself. I just assumed they existed for the people who where willing to pay money. I personally never would because I know there are plenty of photographers who would shoot for free.

     The staff member in this conversation goes by the handle 4ng13, a local cosplayer and owner of the now defunct cosplay website cosfu.org. We had met before, and in my experience he is kind of an asshole, a great cosplayer but has a reputation for having a rotten personality, being very conceited, and getting easily upset. I had known he was very opposed to paid shoots and now he is using his power as a staffer to have the practice banned.

     The other person is a photographer who would like to go by his tumblr name Savagetakingphotos said he posted the conversation as more of a call to attention of the behavior of the convention staffer. As of press time the head chairman of colossalcon had not responded.

     Some photographers charge to help cover some expenses and to help weed out the models who will not take the photo-shoot seriously. A photographer might pay for a dealers space to setup a booth where people can find them. Most photographers though, like to move around to get better backgrounds for their portraits. A lot of photo-shoots are set up online weeks or months before the convention. The convention just makes it easier for both costumer and photographer to meet. If paid shoots were completely banned then these paid shoots would just happen as independent photo-shoots elsewhere. I don't think anyone is getting ripped off by unscrupulous photographers. One would be a fool to pay a photographer who one had not seen his or her portfolio first.

     Of course this is also an issue of unprofessionalism of convention staffers and photographers. The conversation went downhill quickly. If the head of press is mad about paid photographers exploiting press passes then he should do more background checking instead of verbally attacking a photographer online and hurting the reputation of the convention especially in the photographer community.