April Edition Live Magazine - April 2014 Issue. | Page 114

Darcy&Peggy | www.facebook.com/Darcy.Peggy
Kiwira Photography | www.facebook.com/Kiwira
Desmond Kok Mun Chung | www.facebook.com/roxwiindy

cosplay

Muze
Cosplayer & Cosplay Photographer
Muze is a cosplayer & a photographer based in California,USA. We
ask Muze what it is like to be both a
Cosplayer & Cosplay photographer
and also how someone gets into the
world of Cosplay...
Tell us a bit about yourself and
how you got into cosplay, both
photography & cosplaying?
I first started cosplaying in spring
2007 and it was for an event call
Anizona in Arizona, USA. I basically
went with friends and decide to also
try dressing up. I later pick up photography a few months later during
summer of 2007 at a cosplay gathering, at the time I just thought it would
be fun to take pictures of cosplayers.
What are your favourite characters and costumes when you
dress?
My all time favorite character would
be Vocaloid Hiyama Kiyoteru, due to
the natural of Vocaloid the character
is always portrayed differently in different songs. Thus it felt like doing
a new character everytime. I don’t
really have a favorite costumes as I
only do characters that I study and
have a desire to cosplay as them, so
in a way I like all my costumes.
As a photographer tell us a bit
about your cosplay portfolio - how
did you start and which came first

the photography or the cosplay?
Going in to details, I started taking
pictures after I started cosplay. For
a good 3-4 years my gear consist of
Canon 5D Mark I and the 16-35mm
f/2.8 Canon lens. This is can explain
why a lot of my early photos are long
shot, landscape, and dynamic angles because I was only shooting
with a wide angle lens. It was not until the recent 2 years that I have upgraded my body to Canon 5D Mark
III and started working with 50mm
f/1.2. I also started working with flash
since Fall 2013 and am currently using 4 flashes.
Tell us a bit about the various
“cons” do you go to them and do
you have any favourites?
I have been to conventions in California, USA, Singapore, and Taipei,
Taiwan.
The medium size up California cons
usually are hosted in a hotel’s convention room while the large size
one are hosted in actual convention
hall. The general idea is that since it
can be difficult for con-goers to commute from home every day (some
conventions can be up to 8 hours
drive away), being connected to or
close to a hotel become a necessity
for some of the cons. This also allow the cons to schedule events up
to midnight so there is always some-

Muze | www.facebook.com/muzephotoncosplay . Lenneth XVII | www.facebook.com/LennethXVIIxMako . NaNeee? Photography | www.facebook.com/naneeephotos
Chris Decker Cosplay & Commissions | www.facebook.com/DeckerCommissions

thing to do. While conventions in
Singapore and Taipei does not find
the need to work with hotels as it is
very easy to commute from home to
events at these countries, but this
does not necessary mean the events
are smaller in the number of attendees as Asia tend to have a higher
population density.

My favorite USA convention would
be Fanime at San Jose, California
and non-USA convention would be
Anime Festival Asia – Singapore at
Singapore. I like Fanime because
while it is a very large-sized convention, it does not feel commercial
where the main focus is sell products. It is also surrounded by a variety of location making it easier to
set different photoshoots apart. AFA
on the other hand, due to its location
in Asia and its size, enables them to
be able to invite more guests from

the Japanese Anime/Music Industry,
making it easier to meet people from
the production team on the series
you like.

Do you feel there is potential career opportunities for cosplayers
and if so what do you feel they
are? What about cosplay photographers, is it a passion more then
a way to make a living?
As a cosplayer I feel there are a potential career opportunities as some
of the internationally known cosplayers are are able to make a certain
profit through cosplay. However I
feel not only the opportunities are
scarce, but the demand of such career from the anime/game industry is
also not enough to make it a sustainable career. While perhaps you can
be a “professional” cosplayer making
a living selling your prints (without
getting into the fact that most game/

anime character people dressed up
as are copyrighted material from the
design artist/company so it is tricky
when someone is makin g money out
of it) and taking modeling jobs for
anime/game companies at age 2030, are you able to continue down
this path when you are age 30-40?
What about age 40 plus? While been
a model in a similar existing industry
such as fashion model, there is a demand for models of different age so
there is a direction model can take
as they age, where in a cosplay career I do not see it.
I also do not feel the potential of
cosplay photography being a career
choice is very high because:
1. In a market sense, there are way
too many people offering similar service for free for cosplayer to justify
hiring a photographer at a fee con-