Books - Books - Books and a few Cosplayers

It's this time of year again and I am not talking about Christmas, but in some cases it can also bring joy to the people. I am talking about the Book Fair Leipzig (Leipziger Buchmesse) which is finally back on track, meaning it's back in March instead of April (2023) or its little popup "brother" 2 years ago.

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And for me Book Fair always means meeting an insanely huge ammount of Cosplayers. For many years it has been the season opener for the cosplay community, but it lost some of its relevance. It still might be the first big national event for cosplayers, but there are a few smaller yet earlier conventions, e.g. Dedeco in Dresden which can be considered as season openener together with MAG-C in Erfurt.

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I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow when thousands of anime, manga and game lovers will dress up as their favorite heros. Especially the glass hall will be my main turf as usual, because the light is just so amazing, if the weather plays along, as it normally does. 

Nephelux

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I am already very excited and absolutely curious. I have already prepared all of my camera gear and am ready to go for a wild ride of 4 days full of cosplay and otaku related show acts or shopping booths, although those are less relevant for me - too expensive and always the same items that I would not get at any Hard Off yet I could get those for one third of the price.

Nephelux

Let's enjoy the Book Fair Leipzig from March 21st-24th.

EDIT: ...If you can, because the local streetcars and busses are on a strike on Thursday and Friday. 

Written by Iman Shuaibat

DRESSED

It's been a little quiet lately, but that doesn't mean stagnation or stasis.

It has just been a focus shift to other platforms like INSTAGRAM.

Yet still I haven't been standing still, so I want to use this post to share my latest project.

Over the course of the last 15 months I have been doing hundrets of photo shootings with a large ammount of Cosplayers. This collection of over 20.000 pictures was used to pushing forward my idea of an artbook for Cosplay portraits. Beside the many opportunities on conventions I also did a lot of private shootings around Germany, e.g. in a park close to the main station in Erfurt or in several places in Leipzig and Berlin always trying to perfectly match the location and season with the Cosplayers and their costumes. Before I go on, here are a few examples.

Those handpicked pictures and the selected people are pieces of fine art. In late 2021, but actually efficiently in 2022 I really had my first chance of taking pictures in the exact style that I wished to take them. The reason for that is my CANON R5 in combination with my SAMYANG 85mm F1.4, as well as the 24-70 F2.8, 70-200 F4 and a few more from CANON.

This portrait artbook is a piece of passion.

This Book is MORE than just a few portraits of Cosplayers. 

I hope you enjoy the idea of that book.

Here is the Link to that new project - DRESSED - Cosplay Portrait Artbook - preorder your copy on Kickstarter now.