Well, Anime Weekend Atlanta 2018 has come to an end. It was certainly one of the best cons I have been to in a while and in my opinion had a very decent turn out.
I of course got to do what I love doing, TAKING PICS. I did the same last year but I made a few major changes and upgrades this year. What changes did I make you ask?
There were several, but I am sure you have no interest in hearing about ALL Of 
THEM so ill limit it to just a few things but more on that later. More importantly, I am feeling a bit of nostalgia now that the con has ended. In fact, I want to take a quick trip down memory lane of Anime Weekend Atlanta 2016 and see some of the best images I took from the con.
Starting off, I took nearly all of my pictures at the con in doors. That’s right, no major light set ups no large light diffusers and 
certainly no smoke devices. I was stopping people I noticed with phenomenal cosplays and did my best to get a great picture of them amongst the large amounts of cosplayers attending the con. This was the only type of photography at cons I had known and honestly I think it produced some of my best pictures.
This year, I decided to take pictures outdoors. I ended up purchasing a large set of Monolights, light diffusers, and light stands in order to hopefully better my con images. Well
I personally believe it made a huge difference but we shall see when I finish editing all of the pictures I took at Anime Weekend Atlanta 2018.
One of the downsides I did notice comparing my indoor photos to the outdoor photos is the difference in poses. Cosplayers outdoors were much more willing to engage in character poses as compared to my indoor shoots, which you will be able to see next week! Look out for the comparison.
Im sure this just had a lot to do with the available space but none the less I loved it. Cosplayers could also fully maximize their large props which I could not get enough of. Another major difference I discovered regarding indoor and outdoor shoots was the amount of time cosplayers were willing to spend on a shoot.
Indoors, its just a quick snap and people are on their way. Outdoors is when you get the entire line up of poses. That’s when
you can easily spend 15 to 30 minutes on each cosplayer. Once again I absolutely loved this.
Finally, the best part of moving to outdoor shots was not having to inconvenience others or holding up traffic to ask for a shot. Time and time again I know I have seen and even personally caused traffic delays at conventions because I asked for a shot.
Once again, this problem did not occur with outdoor shoots. When asking for a shoot, I could simple ask a cosplayer to follow me to my set up without causing and hold ups in the traffic line. But one major hold up several of the photographers experienced this year was heckling from security.
Security for the surrounding businesses were preventing photographers from setting up there equipment. They 
claimed that we needed permits since it was private property. I have been to several Anime Weekend Atlanta conventions and this is the first time I have ever seen this happen.
It was beyond infuriating and was extremely inconsistent. Some guards would make us take down our setups while others 
did not care. Moving forward I will simply make sure I get a permit next year through Children’s Klein to shoot on there property.
Well that will do it for this post. I hope you enjoyed not only a few flash back images to last year’s con but also a bit of the major differences between shooting cosplay photos indoors and outdoors.
I am currently working on this year’s pictures and should have them all completed by next week. Stay on the lookout because I
took some amazing pictures and cant wait to show them. Well, until the next time STAY BOUNDLESS!
