Over this past weekend, I volunteered as the Official Imperial Photographer for Garrison Titan’s charity photoshoot for the Children’s Therapy Center. The charity photoshoot took place at the 2008 Emerald City Comic-Con, and we had hundreds of fans filing through the booth taking pictures with Darth Vader, Boba Fett, stormtroopers, and other characters from the Star Wars universe. With a suggested donation of $5 per photo, we raised over $2000 over the weekend. On top of that, a third party was matching all the funds, so the grand total was over $4000. It was a smashing success.
The entire weekend was a crazy-busy production line of portrait sessions. I spent no more than 2-3 minutes working any one group and setting up fun and interesting shots against a 10′ wide by 8′ tall vinyl backdrop. Sometimes there were only a few people in line. Sometimes there was 20+ people. Saturday was the busiest day with me shooting practically non-stop from 10am-5pm. Sunday was a bit easier thanks, in part, to it being Mother’s Day. We still had a steady flow of traffic though.
One of the highlights of the weekend was getting to hang out with Daniel Logan, the actor who portrayed the young Boba Fett in Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. When he wasn’t busy with signing autographs and photo ops, he hung out at our booth chatting with everyone, getting involved in the shoots, and playing with the kids. He was an all-around cool guy.
I’m still pretty exhausted from the long weekend, but it’s a good exhaustion. I got to meet some really cool and fun people. I got a ton of practice posing group photos as quick as I could. And I got a chance to totally geek out over Star Wars, comics, and other dorky stuff. It was a good weekend.
Check out some sample shots below and more in my Flickr photostream.
Thank you for your assistance this past weekend being our Photographer for this event. We could not have done it without you.
Mike “Dishnu”
Garrison Titan XO
Danny, what type of lighting set up and other gear did you use during the shoot?
@Mike - It was my pleasure! I had a blast working with you guys and hope we can do it again in the future.
@Paul - I tried to set up two speedlights on either side of the booth, but there wasn’t enough room to work with and the backdrop was a very shiny vinyl that picked up highlight everywhere. I did use an on-camera SB-600 angled up at 45° for a little bit, but, again, the shiny backdrop was causing problems. I ended up using the ambient fluorescents and shooting at ISO 800 and a fairly wide aperture for most of the weekend. I also cranked up the D-Lighting on my D300 to boost the shadow detail and kill as much of the raccoon eyes as I could. Not ideal, but it worked for what we needed.
very cool to do and even cooler to see… well done :)
one day I hope to figure out light too, maybe even figure out a light saber :)