Cosplay Bonanza: Memory Versus Reality

The beauty of photoshoppery is the ability to make a digitally captured moment look exactly how you remember it, make the colors and mood just as vivid as it actually seemed. Digital devices lack the ability to truly capture what the human eye does let alone capture the awe of the moment. Here is a more in depth view of one of the shots pictured from last weeks post as I remember it versus how the moment actually captured.
[mouse over to see original capture]



Hardest part about shooting at a convention is that there are tons of people that get in the way and the back drop is a convention center... which is about the dullest backdrop possible. A plethora of wall mounted visual distractions and photo bombers. Two big background distractions that I was oblivious to when I snapped this shot was the mildly disgruntled man sitting up against the wall and the gray wall panel.

Of these Mass Effect cosplayers, the girl in blue on the right was the most impressive. The costume is well done, tons of amazing detail. When I looked at the original in detail after getting home from the convention, I noticed some things (aside from the background distractions) that detracted from my memory of the moment. The girl after a long day at the con had some of her makeup beginning to wear off, the headpiece was starting to come a bit undone, and her bra was sticking out a bit. This is the reality of the moment, but wasn't true to my memory and initial impression of the moment. A true naturalist would have left it as it was and could even argue that by "fixing it" I destroyed the original integrity of the moment... Ultimately, I can live with this since I was able to recapture the moment as I remembered it.