Cosplay Photography & Other Geeky Interests
DMJ Photography blog page. I will post convention reports, cosplay photography, announcements, random thoughts, and other geeky things here.
This past Saturday I traveled down to Hampton, Virginia to attend my first NekoCon anime convention. The convention took place over the November 3-5, 2017 weekend although I was only there for one day. This medium-sized con is located near the ocean and had a lot of nice locations nearby and a lot of food options to choose from within reasonable walking distance.
Read MoreI took a road trip yesterday to the Mitsuwa Marketplace up in Edgewater, New Jersey across the river from New York City. Mitsuwa is basically the closest thing to a Little Tokyo that we'll get on the East Coast. The mall area is basically split between two buildings. The main Mitsuwa Marketplace building houses the restaurants, a few shops, and the supermarket. Outside across the little alley is a line of buildings with additional shops and boutiques. The main interest for otaku fans is the Kinokuniya Bookstore and the Little Japan USA essentials shop. Of course being Asian I took some food shots but decided to spice things up a little by posing some Saber figures from the Fate series with the food (because why not?).
Read MoreThe debut of Colossalcon East took place this past weekend from September 8-10, 2017 in Pocono Manor, PA. I've never been to the main "pool party" in Ohio before, so this marks my first time attending a Colossalcon convention. Having run the successful anime con in Ohio for the past 16 years, Colossalcon has now made a successful expansion eastwards to Pennsylvania at the Kalahari Waterpark and Resorts up in the Poconos Mountains. This will be one of those blog posts that I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking.
Read MoreAfter 18 years, Otakon has finally left Baltimore behind to find a new home in our nation's capital. With spiraling attendance numbers and increasing discontent about the crowded and antiquated Baltimore Convention Center, Otakon is looking to open a new chapter in its history by moving to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center which they claim boasts five times the square footage. The DC debut took place this past weekend from Friday, August 11 through Sunday, August 13, 2017. I'll be completely honest to say that leading up to this event I had a sense of anxiety and doubt about how Otakon will fare in this new location. But to summarize in case you don't want to read the entirety of this lengthy report to get to my verdict: I was impressed. Very impressed.
Read MoreThe 2017 edition of the AnimeNEXT anime convention was held this past weekend from June 9-11, 2017. This is the second year that AnimeNEXT has been held at the Atlantic City, NJ location (and my second AnimeNEXT as well). It was certainly a beautiful weekend for the convention, and I certainly look forward to coming back again in the future.
Read MoreLast weekend was the Zenkaikon anime convention held in Lancaster, PA from April 28-30, 2017. It is essentially my hometown con since it's only about 25 minutes away from my parents house. But, forget the guests, panels, events, cosplay, merchandise, etc. This weekend was all about the donuts. Chocolate covered maple bacon long john donuts to be exact!
Read MoreThe Anime Boston convention was held this past weekend from Friday March 31 through Sunday April 2, 2017 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA. This was my first time attending this convention so it was an entirely new experience for me. I kind of made the mistake of flying in on Friday morning instead of coming out the previous night as I had to lug my suitcase around during the morning before I could go and check into my hotel (although they did thankfully have a paid bag check area to store things). And since I had to leave and get situated with my hotel I also lost out on some valuable time that I could have spent actually doing things at the convention (and I missed out on the fire alarm!). Lessons learned for future trips to distant conventions. And as luck would have it, I apparently brought some bad weather with me as well as I have been told that this year was the first year in AB history that it had snowed during the convention. Granted, the snow never really accumulated much on the ground but it was still very wet and troublesome for both Friday evening and the entirety of Saturday.
Read MoreThe Katsucon 2017 anime convention was held this past weekend from February 17-19, 2017 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, MD. Katsucon was just as good as past years and once again reminds everyone why it's the premier convention for cosplay. The amount of cosplayers strutting their stuff was staggering and the quality and creativity continues to be mind-blowing. There's no question in my mind that Katsucon has firmly supplanted Otakon as the must go-to convention in this region, especially when cosplay is concerned.
Read MoreThe 2nd annual AniMore anime convention was held this weekend from January 13-15, 2017 in Baltimore, MD. I actually only stopped by for a few hours on Saturday as I was curious as to how it may have changed or grown since its debut last year. AniMore had a rough start last year as a record-breaking blizzard hit the area during the same weekend which caused a lot of attendees, panelists, and vendors to not show up (you can read my report of last year's con here). While there were some signs of minor growth this year it was most likely once again hampered by a weather forecast for dangerous icy conditions (which never materialized).
Read MoreThe MAGFest 2017 Music and Gaming Festival was held last weekend from January 5-8, 2017 in National Harbor, MD. There really isn't a whole lot for me to say about this year's MAGFest because it's simply the same great, fun, laid back place for all things video games and music, except continuously bigger. If rumored speculations are true about attendance this year nearing the 25,000 mark then that is twice as many attendees than the first MAGFest that I attended back in 2014. MAGFest has become so popular that pre-registration and hotel reservations were being sold out at record paces.
Read MoreCosplay photography blog by DMJ Photography. I will post convention reports, cosplay photography albums, event coverage, random thoughts, and other geeky things here.
