February 1st, 2018

Recap: January 2018

I’ve been in an unmotivated, lazy funk most of January, which isn’t that abnormal for me this time of year or for many others in my city who have seasonal allergies. It’s the dreaded cedar season. Not only am I suffering from allergy symptoms, but it doesn’t let me get a good night’s sleep, so I’m also struggling with lack of sleep most days. I can’t wait for this to pass, so I can feel normal again!

As for what happened in the month, I’m going to mix in the end of December to start, as there was an annual Anime convention in my city. I normally go to it and do photoshoots for other cosplayers, but this time, I just showed up to get a photoshoot done for my own Tashigi cosplay and left immediately afterwards. I have photos back from it already!

More photos here on my cosplay blog!

The reason why I didn’t stay around was because… my husband and I were going car shopping! We wanted to take advantage of the year-end deals. The past few years, I’ve been wanting to replace our cars with ones that are more eco friendly, ideally one that is hybrid and one that is full electric. I have an Acura TL, and my husband had a Ford Escort, and well, the Escort was on its last legs and felt like it was about to break down at any moment. We worked on replacing that one first.

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17 · Posted in Life, Monthly Recaps
January 14th, 2018

Behind the Scenes: Post Processing

People tend to forget that there’s a large chunk of work for a photographer between taking the photos and returning them. I hear a lot of complaints, like “why am I paying so much for only __ hours?” Or, “why is it taking so long to get my photos back?”

The answer is: post processing! Post processing takes up way more of my time than the shoot itself. My process differs depending on the type of photography I’m doing. When it comes to photoshoots, especially cosplay photoshoots, I tend to do more in the post processing phase. This is because:

  1. People book me for my photography style. This includes how I post process.
  2. Photoshoots are not meant to document the scene. They purposely have more creative freedom and even more so with cosplay.
  3. People are expecting the best photos I can give them of their cosplays. I’m going to do my best to make sure it meets both mine and their expectations.

Here is a peek at my process!

1. Import into Lightroom

Lightroom is my choice for most of my photo editing. While the editing features (for RAWs) between Lightroom and Photoshop are almost the same, I prefer Lightroom for its workflow, which you’ll see in this entry.

The first thing I do is import everything into Lightroom. I have parent folders for certain types of photography, and then from there, I let Lightroom organize my photos by date.

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15 · Posted in Hobbies, Photography, Photography, Tips / Recommends
January 1st, 2018

Gaming year in review: 2017

Happy New Year everyone! It’s time for my usual gaming year in review! This is where I briefly review every game I played in the year and pick my favorites. (As always, I only count games that I haven’t played before, are remakes, or have new content – no replays.)

Let’s start with the favorites! These are picked out of the games I played in 2017, which may or may not have been released that year. This time, I’m adding an “honorable mention” since I play way more single player games, and I feel like I miss out on featuring other really good games.

Favorite Single Player: Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild
A Zelda game that is unlike other Zelda games, which also exceeded my expectations. I had my doubts on the open world feel, but it was refreshing to see a Zelda game finally break out of its formula. While I wished the Divine Beasts provided more of a challenge, the rest of the world offered more to fill the gap, and I found myself addicted to exploring and doing things at my own pace.

Favorite Multiplayer: Destiny 2
Destiny 2 feels like a MMO/shooter mishmash that doesn’t quite know what it is, but it’s filled that online co-op gap that I’ve been missing. It’s been fun to play with my friends, and I like how different and involved the raids are. I do wish that it had more content, but at least they’re still adding things, and the weekly challenges keep bringing us back in.

Favorite Indie/Download: Pyre
Supergiant excels when it comes to beautiful art, music, and likeable characters. Pyre is probably the most different feeling of their three games, with its decision making gameplay and a combat system that is more like a sports game. I was unsure about it at first, but the more I play it, the more into I get.

Honorable Mention: Tomb Raider
I enjoyed Tomb Raider more than I expected. At first, I didn’t take it seriously because it seemed like everything that could possibly go wrong for Lara does (and continues to). However, it’s the right balance of combat, exploration, and puzzles, making this a great game.

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13 · Posted in Gaming, Hobbies, Year in Review
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