....California Dreaming MARTIN WONG PHOTO www.facebook.com/MARTINWONGPHOTO Martin Wong is a Northern California based cosplay photographer that is a true professional. His style is unique, identifiable and stands out for its’ clean communication and use of tones to bring characters to life.
running around the convention with very colorful pants. If you are talking about my work, then it has to do a lot a lot of practice and experimenting. You’ve photographed some of the most well known cosplayers around, how did that come about?
Martin, tell us a bit about yourself, where you are based and how you got into cosplay photography.
I didn’t know if people were well known when I first started, I just went around convention and asked any cosplayers that I like to shoot.
I am currently based in Northern California, and I got into shooting cosplay because an old friend of mine wanted me to share a room few years ago at a local convention and introduced me to cosplay because she knows that I shoot photography. She said it would be something interesting to me and IT DEFINITELY WAS. And I’ve been shooting cosplay ever since! You have an interesting and unique style, how would you describe it for our readers? I really like my subjects to stand out from the pictures and I try to accomplish that by using vibrant colors and contrast. I also like to use creative lighting to separate my subjects from the background. And how did your “look” develop? Are we talking about me or my works? If you are talking about me, I am known as that photographer
You’ve got an amazing cosplay book, what made you decide to create a book and how did you get all those amazing cosplayers involved? I always love traditional media like canvas, prints, and books. So of course I decided to make a book so that people can share the same appreciation that I have. A lot of the cosplayers that I shot with became great friends with me and they are definitely amazing for helping me out. With your particular look, do you do much post processing and how long do you spend on an image? I spend a lot of time in post processing because I wanted to create art the way that I envisioned in my head. On average, I spend about 6 hours on each photoshoot picture that I process.
We’d love to know more about your process of creating an image, tell us how it starts and what is the time line of creating a particular image or working with a particular cosplayer. Have an idea of what you want is very important, and that can be difficult when you are limited by time, environment, and tools, so you definitely need to be very creative on the spot. As soon as I spot out a cosplayer that I would like to shoot, I would ask them to do a photoshoot with me. If they agree, then I will instantly brainstorm how to shoot the cosplayer and where I need to shoot them. I usually start creating images in my head on our way to the shooting location and have a general idea of how I want my final shot to look like. There are different interactions with different cosplayers, some love to create poses as I shoot, and some love to have me pose them. Shooting at convention usually takes about 10-15 minutes from the first shot to the last shot. Once I go home, I will look at all the photos from the photoshoot and slowly narrow down to the one shot that I like the most. Then I will jump right into it and start process it the way I want the final product to look like (while it is still fresh in my head). Many things are involved in editing