My name is Darrell and I am a Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costuming and Editorial photographer currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. My work includes cosplay, fashion and editorial photography in the studio or on location with a focus on creating an amazing picture to bring out personalities of a character.
I am a nerd who likes pressing buttons.. so i bought a camera.
I don't consider myself having "a style".. I don't specialize and stick to one specific type of photography either. I get bored easily.. I like variety and i like mixing things up and trying new things.
Here on my blog, you will get to see favorite photo shoots, how-to's, and even behind the scenes of lighting and camera setups. I don't believe there are secrets in photography. I enjoy sharing knowledge.. don't be shy.. talk to me :)
Planning a photoshoot at DragonCon is likely one of the hardest things to do as a fantasy photographer. Everyone wants to shoot.. sure.. but hardly anyone will due to the actual crumbled up mess that DragonCon can be. They think they have time.. but end up losing it somewhere between the Marriott and the Westin.
DragonCon has become one of my favorite things to do during the year. I am trying to scrape something up on things to do to get the good costumers to do a shoot and actually show up. I am not dissing anyone in any way.. because I completely understand the circumstances that the biggest con in the country can cause. The challenge is getting people aware that you are shooting for them and try and scoot them away from the hundreds of thousands of people in the backgrounds. Yeah.. con pictures is not really my thing. If I can get someone to come out from the wilderness, it is a huge score for me.
Take this lovely Kelly Lakowski – her and her husband are just amazing people and have superb costumes to show. They are from Virginia beach and come down once a year for the big con (like the majority of the big costumers). This set will be for her Catwoman costume that really popped out at me because of the way this girl can bend. Not many girls are able to stretch and get down on the floor in a costume these days.
I was able to drag her down the the dirtiest and hottest (100+ degress, filthy minds!) stairwell in the area – and they were both totally cool about doing it.
Strobist info: This was shot with 3 lights.. one at the bottom of the stairwell, one at the top and one directly above her. All 3 of the lights were gelled to yellow for the effect – the actual stairwell was lit green and ugly.. I had to make it my own ugly
For some reason, it took me quite a while to come up with a neat little title for this post. I set someone on fire.. and totally wanted it to be “YEAH!! FIRE, MOTHERF*****! But then I had to realize that someone would actually have to search those keywords to find it in google. Not happening.
This past few months, I decided to cross the boundaries that I would normally stay in and do something just a tad dangerous. I have been wanting to shoot an X-Men Dark Phoenix cosplay for quite some time and the majority of the ideas made me say “meh” to myself. All it takes is a quick second to look on over to Deviantart and find photoshopped pictures of some really hideous fake fire on a Phoenix costume.. or better yet, a background of fire with a cut-out of her standing in fire pretending to be mean. None of it really excited me and photo manipulation is not really my thing. I love experimenting with it and have had some neat results with it.. but I like being minimalistic with the shop.
The idea was blatantly obvious to myself.. “Hey.. why don’t I just light a human on fire instead?” ……The Wife looks at me like she was about to set ME on fire.
The technicalities behind real fire stunts becomes complicating as you try and research how to do it correctly. There are on-skin gels, retardant gels, clothing, undergarments and specific fuels that all play into different approaches. My first thought was the on-skin gels that we could just apply to the costume and set the actual gel on fire. The actual process on OBTAINING that gel is just absurd… “yeah.. no, I do not work for Paramount Pictures..”
Phone call after phone call from all around the country, I began to realize how uncool it was being one of those “extremely small guys” in the film and photo production industry. What did I then do? I hit up youtube on how to set someone on fire. I ran into a lot of .. interesting.. stuff. Majority are drunken kids lighting themselves on fire and then running in circles trying to put it out.. most of them being unsuccessful and then sprinting in a random direction panicking. STOP, DROP AND ROLL, PEOPLE!
I then got a phone call from on of my video guys. He brought up that he knew a stunts guy that worked on Walking Dead TV series here in Atlanta and actually gave me the guys number. Called him up, spoke for many hours and how we could make a fire stunt happen which ended up with me hiring him and his team. It was an amazing relief and a great feeling seeing the idea move forward… until I got a phone call from the Warehouse property manager (where we were going to shoot at)..
“Sure, you can do pyro stunts in the warehouse, as long as you front up $100,000 for liabilities and insurance”
Oh sure, I got 100 G’s sitting right here in my pocket… I said the F word record breaking times after that phone call. Back to the drawing board.
I came up with an idea to do it in an easier, controlled location. How about a photography studio? I called up a big one here in Atlanta and talked with the owner. He authorized that we could do pyro in the studio as long as we all signed his waivers (along with mine).. NO PROBLEM! But, studio backdrops are boring. I decided to make my own backdrop.. and build it all by myself.
I needed something for a wide shot.. something that could fit within my frame of a full body-length landscape aligned shot. I hit up Home Depot and bought 16ft of 8ft long plywood and a ton of 2×3′s and built me some free-standing walls. Now, these walls have to hold something itneresting. How about some colorful comic books? Bought myself a few staple guns and had at it.
To be on the specific side, I wanted the comics in the background to be ONLY from X-Men of some sort… I was able to do that to the 99th percentile. I noticed after the day that an avengers comic was supremely sneaky and got on the wall.. wasn’t going to cry over it. (can YOU find it?)
I got an idea to burn comics with Dark Phoenix… not just any comics.. Avengers comics. Some of you may know about the AVX coming in April. A comic series for X-Men vs Avengers. I decided to take it upon myself to create a “photo-promo” for the upcoming series… siding with the X-Men of course!
The day finally came to do the big shoot. Everyone marked their calendars and everyone showed up. The fire team was there in full force along with photo assistants and video BTS teams. It all began clicking together.. shots were tried and the majority of what was kept was decided upon “on the fly”. I had no flippin idea what I was doing. I had a shot in my head that I wanted to capture and it ended up being trashed because something else looked better. We had a limited amount of burns due to the leather gloves only being able to withstand 2-3 burns before being completely ruined and charred. The Behind the Scenes video explains a good amount of process and safety behind the burns – make sure you check it out.
I believe I may have overdone myself this time. I will be toning it down just a little bit over this year. Doing some more studio shots.. and more location shots.. but this time not requiring stunt teams and large amounts of plywood.
YOU KILLED COMICS, YOU BASTARD!!! Next time, use something that everybody calls “a copy machine”. Anyways, the photos look awesome. You did a great job it. Finally somebody does Cosplay the right way. Keep up the good work. Laters.
[...] BGZ Studios literally set cosplay babe Miracole on fire and Bleeding Cool gave the scoop. Here’s the pics and making of video below and for the full blog check here [...]
The sheer fact that I was able to pull off a portfolio-winning shot during an art show weekend is pretty amazing in itself. That is exactly what happened during AWA 2011.
I go to art shows and conventions around the country (in which I am expanding to more this year) and I set up my big prints and show off some of my best work to the community. Costumers from all around show up to get some shots from me and I am more than happy to try anything new. This set was actually shot on a skybridge connecting hotels and the mall in downtown. The bridge is almost ALWAYS packed with people crossing.. but with the help of some big dudes stalling people on each end.. it becomes an amazing looking environment! It almost looks like you are on a ship docking area or a bridge onto it at least.. don’t ya think?
Strobist Info:
This was shot at tungsten white balance for the blue effect. Compensated with Orange gels on 4 lights to light Tali
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