ACEN 2013

So it was my second year at Anime Central; I had such a fun time last year I decided to come back. I drove up on thursday, started at 6 am, then arrived at my friends house at around 4:30 pm.

For this trip I had rented a Gopro camcorder and strapped it to my DSLR. I thought I could maybe make a movie out of the footage. I don't know what went wrong most of the footage is just unusable, and the video does not look as polished as the videos on Gopro's youtube channel. First I had the camera mounted on the back to shoot James Nachtwey style, but since I shoot mostly verticals, this did not work out. Then I mounted the camera on the front to be out of the way but lost the sense of it mounted on another camera. There were other problems too, I was using a very cheap bracket and it kept moving around on me. It was strange though, everyone I talked to never heard of a gopro before, and no one I was shooting said anything about it. There was one photographer who mentioned it, but he had to quickly talk to someone else, so I didn't talk with him for long.

About the actual convention,

The convention was great, great weather it was overcast most of the time which made it great for photos. The world is one big soft-light, and there are lots of places outside since the convention is held in two different buildings; There are lots of people walking in between the two.

When walking around I did try to be more sociable. I took photos of more cosplayers than I usually do. I even just went up to a non-cosplaying guy and talked to him for a few minutes. Using the gopro did help me study how I interacted with people. I found out I normally asked for a photo then immediately walk away right after quickly saying "Thanks" or something. Now my goal will be to kinda stay and talk for a few more seconds.

I love using polaroid, for this convention I did use it twice. Once on a JSRF cosplayer and again on 3 really great Digimon cosplayers. Using the Polaroid is a lot different than using a digital camera. You have to be careful that you followed all the steps for setting up and shooting the camera, and only use it on good cosplayers. The advantage is it really makes the sitter connect with you since they think the camera is really cool and unique.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rexroller/sets/72157633522854024/

Tekkoshocon X-2 (2013)

Disappointment is a word that comes to my mind.

     Ok, maybe not disappointment, I didn't really feel like going to Tekko this year because of problems the convention had grown in the past, but I wanted to see some of my con buddies, who I have not seen in awhile, this was the only highlight of the trip.

     I really wanted to go into the dealers room but some bitch-ass 12 year old said I could not enter because my camera bag is too big, he suggested using the bag check. But I wasn't going to use them because I carry thousands of dollars worth of equipment and if the convention wasn't going to trust me, I wasn't going to trust it. Besides, the bag check cost money, so I though it was just another scam for money, like the fact that this convention doesn't have single day badges except for sunday. The wording on the Tekkoshocon website tried to make it seem like it was more convenient. "The General Admission badge gets you access to one, two, or all days of the convention."
     Tekkoshocon 8, the last year at the convention center, was great they had rented out both the 3rd and the 4th floor. Apparently it isn't really economically viable to host the convention at the DLLCC because of the cost of space and issues with the Union, Tekko staff aren't aloud to move chairs and stuff around without being fined. The lack of space meant all of the panel rooms doubled as video rooms and there were only about 8 of them; the card game area, dealers room, and artist's alley where all placed into Hall C.