This Photojojo time capsule contains Otakon photos as well as one of Dina and one of a strange car I saw on 295.

Another Otakon photo in this Top 200 Photo

photo #22 is:

This photo was taken on the first time I discovered Otakon in Baltimore. We were just walking around Baltimore and noticed cosplayers here and there. At first I thought it was just a strange group of friends. But when we kept seeing more and more of them, I figured something was up. I didn’t know it yet, but it was the last day of Otakon. Since it was the last day and the convention was officially over, people could just walk into the convention center and so I did and took some candid shots with my 55-200mm lens. I didn’t know at the time that these people wanted to be photographed and were used to being photographed. So I was doing most of it candidly.

Otakon and some familiar faces for this Top 200 Photo

photo #49 is:

These Soul Eater cosplayers have appeared before on this list and will appear at least once more. I think this photo is unique in showing them from head (or hat) to toe. For the first time, I’ve realized that the woman on the right has “elf shoes” or shoes with curly toes. I think it’s pretty odd how much of a gap there is in the number of views between all these photos of the same subjects.

Back to Otakon for today’s Top 200 Photo.

photo #117 is:

Confusingly, Lolita fashion has noting to do with the novel by Nabokov about a man falling in love with an underaged girl. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita) Instead, it is an emphasis on Victorian-age fashion. It is, according to Wikipedia (and substantiated by what I’ve seen), subdivided into Gothic Lolita, Sweet Lolita, Classic Lolita, and Punk Lolita. I think this girl falls somewhere between Gothic and Sweet Lolita.

Otakon and video game characters in today’s Top 200 Photo!

photo #123 is:

I’ve mentioned my love of Final Fantasy before. And that was the main reason for photographing the girl on the left. I saw the moogle and had to photograph her. Later I found out she is a character from Final Fantasy X. Every time I see this photo I’m filled with regret that I chose to do it in landscape orientation to include her friend (From Elite Beat Agents) because the bottom half of the costume is very intricate. It was only my second time photographing at Otakon and I was very nervous to ask people to take their photos and then I tended to rush through it. I’ve gotten better with each Otakon, but I’m still working on getting over it completely.

Back to Baltimore for this Top 200 Photo.

photo #152 is:

Another photo from Otakon. I was especially happy to see these guys at Otakon. Ranma ½ was the first anime I ever saw. It was my entry into the whole genre. I remember discovering it at a video rental store in Tualatin, OR. They had some VHS tapes of Seasons 2 and 3. I remember being so psyched that there were cartoons that weren’t for kids. I couldn’t wait for them to get the next tape. I spent all my time in the library at school researching Ranma and learning about the story and getting into fan fiction for the first time. If I’d been born about a decade later I probably would have really gotten into the whole fan-sub scene. Bandwidth was just too small back in those days.

Here is today’s Top 200 Photo

photo #155 is:

Ever since I moved to Baltimore, I’ve been in the city during Otakon, the annual anime convention. The first couple of times it was a complete accident. For the the past two years I’ve looked up the dates ahead of time and made sure to be there to take some photos. I haven’t yet bought a ticket, but almost all of them tend to spend some time outside and everyone’s amenable to photos. After all, they’ve spent as much as the entire last year working on their costumes in some. I usually have a great time enjoying all the awesome costumes and they usually do pretty well views-wise on flickr. So I know there are at least two more Otakon photos on the Top 200 Photos.

Just like last year, I went to Otakon, but didn’t pay to get in.  Perhaps next year.  So, like last year, I mostly photographed people  under the the awning of the convention center.  Unlike last year, I asked lots of people if I could photograph them.  It paid off as I was able to get lots of shots I would have otherwise missed.  It also yielded me a lot more single person portraits rather than just massive group shots that everyone else happened to be shooting.  So, here are some of my favorite shots.

As always you can view it on their site here.  (and sign up for your own)  Here are the photos from the late July Photojojo time capsule.   It’s mostly my 365 with a little bit of Otakon thrown in.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“People came to Otakon from all around the USA”] [/caption]

For the first time since moving here, I found out about Otakon ahead of time. Unfortunately, the economics didn’t work out we didn’t buy tickets. But I did go to hang out outside Otakon on Saturday to get some photos. Lessons learned:

• Remember what you learned in Hawaii and don’t be afraid to approach people. This is especially the case with Otakon. The cosplayers have spent a long time working on their costumes, sometimes up to a whole year. They want to show off their costumes. So go up to them and ask to photograph them.
• With a 1.6x crop factor camera like the Canon 400D, 28mm is not wide enough. It’s very, very crowded at Otakon. They had something like 19 000 preregistered attendees. I missed out on getting some awesome shots of costumes such as this one where the girl on the left had an amazing bottom part to her costume, but I couldn’t fit her and her friend in without backing up a lot more
• Buy tickets to Otakon! I missed out on a bunch of costumes because they were walking into the conference too quickly for me to intercept them at the door. So attend so you can see all the costumes

And now here is my photo essay on Otakon 2009.