New Cosplay Photography Con Rates!

At recent anime & comic conventions, I've mainly offered only one special con rate for cosplayers who wanted to hire me. Many of those cosplayers' shoots I used to try out new editing techniques and gave them much more than they paid for. While I wish I could keep giving people full editing and special effects at such a low cost, unfortunately, that editing eats up a large amount of time and has often either made me late on delivering those photos or caused me to rush on other photos, leading to inconsistent quality. Of course, however, I still want to offer my services at very reasonable rates. Putting together cosplays and paying for the cons to wear them at can become so expensive as it is, so having to hire a photographer on top of that can sometimes be difficult on people's wallets. And that's why I'm now offering 3 different special con rates.

I want to be able to give cosplayers the best quality for what they pay for. I despise giving cosplayers a couple photos that I absolutely adore and knowing that the rest of the photos I give them I feel kind of "meh" about, simply because I didn't have enough time to make them all that same level of great.

While the short time slots allowed me to offer my services cheaper, I found that they're just too short of time to get the amount of photos I offered at the quality I would like them to be at. 20 minute slots are fine for a couple truly great shots. But when I'm trying to get somewhere between 6 & 8 gorgeous shots while maneuvering around other cosplayers and making sure that you look your best, it's too short of time. The 20 minute "Mini" Shoots are still being offered for those who may be more on a budget, but I've set them up in a way that's more realistic in getting really good quality for a short amount of time.

The new rates & packages will allow me to have the amount of time needed to make sure my camera & gear are at the proper best settings, and allow me time to make sure everything within the background and your costume look good for the photos. Plus I will be able to spend an appropriate amount of time editing according to what you paid for.

What you can also expect with this change is that I am also limiting the amount of shoots I take at any con.  This year at Katsucon, I got a very large amount of photoshoot requests, much more than I expected. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed working with so many talented cosplayers, but it truly ended up being an overwhelming amount, to the point that I was thankful that the fire alarm caused some cancellations. As far as a number amount goes for the limit, it will depend on the con, since every con is different on how many hours/days they last.

With all that being said, I hope to continue working with so many fantastic cosplayers, and the ones I've worked with already have been so great and I hope I can work with many of them again as well. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, as usual, please leave them in a comment! I'll try my best to answer you as soon as I can.

P.s. Keep in mind, these are special con rates. The rates I offer at cons are cheaper than outside of con shoots. The reason being is simply because of the convenience factor. Whether you hire me or not, I will probably already be there, so I'm not necessarily going out of my way to travel to you. And of course, we're limited to what's nearby that con. Outside of cons, you have much more options but also have to factor in the cost of me having to travel to that location. It it also the reason that I don't offer less than 1 hour sessions for outside of cons. My rates for outside of cons usually fall into one of the following two:

Also, I'm sure the question concerning shooting groups will come up. As it goes right now, I'm sorry to say that I don't do large groups at cons. I try to stay within the limit of about 3 people. Occasionally I do take on smaller groups at small cons/events, usually when it consists of at least some people I already know, but rarely. Groups require a lot of organizing and that's not always guaranteed by the group itself. It's much easier for me to work with solos or pairs. BUT, if you really want me to shoot your group, please don't be afraid to ask anyway. It is not a guaranteed "no." There's always a possibility that it may catch my interest, so it doesn't hurt to ask. :)

*These rates will probably change more in the future, but for at least 2016, you can count on them staying consistent with what I posted.