"Buy all the film you can get your hands on..."

I got a bit of a confession to make. I was getting bored of taking pictures.

Although I'm an avid amateur photographer, I have found myself getting into a bit of a rut regarding the hobby. This was probably not helped by changes at work and it picking up in what should be a fairly quiet period, as well as a lack of major holidays and conventions for me to go to for this half of the year.

The problem I was getting is that I have been in the photography game for a while. At least 13 years if you only count the years I've been in the hobby seriously and continuously, possibly more than 15 if you count the years I've been taking pictures on and off. After this amount of time, things get stale. Familiarity breeds contempt and it is too easy to get fatigued, not just in photography but any hobby.

I had some money still left over from my trip to Southampton, despite the amount spent to travel and stay there. That in itself is a dangerous thing. Boredom and money are an even more lethal combination. After doing some brief research (Read: Typed words into a search engine and skimmed through the results), I ended up deciding that I needed to go retro.

Really retro.

Cosplay Experience Retrospective

As we come to the end of another year and enter a new one, I feel it would be appropriate to look back on my time in the geeky community and why this year is particularly important to myself, especially from an emotional standpoint.

I had been watching Anime during my early childhood, mostly through video tape cassette recordings sent from relatives in the spiritual Motherland that is Hong Kong, and after a long gap, got back into watching it when I started attending University. I am not sure what encouraged me to return to Anime, but it happened. Until then, however, I felt like I was only just scratching the surfance of the fandom. At some point, I caught wind of certain events where fellow Otaku would congregate, so-called “Anime Conventions”, where geeks would actually be able to see and speak to each other about various geeky topics in the same place. It was only after I attended my first Anime Convention about 12 years ago where I felt I had finally felt like I was a full blown Anime geek. But there was one thing I felt I was missing out on but didn’t have the confidence to try.

That being Cosplay.

Hibanacon Post Event Writeup

Last weekend, I was at Hibanacon, a "residential" Anime convention that was the brainchild of certain friends I know of who are based around in and around Basingstoke (And hence will be referred to as the "Basingstoke Circle"). This was the second one to be held at the Jurys Inn hotel in Milton Keynes. I was intending on writing a post action report on the inaugural event, but eventually forgot to do so. I'm intending to rectify this. Anyway, the short version of the story is that the first Hibana was sort of an obligation due to me knowing so many of the committee, but even if I didn't, I would've enjoyed myself. Attendance at the second one was all but a given.

"Don't follow the rules and don't shoot for anybody other than yourself..."

I am not a good photographer.
At least, I don't think I am.
A lot of people seem to think I am.
But personally I don't feel that way.

At best, I consider myself an "average" photographer who understands the limitations of his equipment and own skills quite well and has learnt through a lot of experience gained through trial and error (And advice from friends and other photographers) how to be creative within those limitations.

The Madness of Photography

"No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness." -Aristotle

I have to admit I am not a creative person when it comes to words. I am not a particularly eloquent writer when it comes to words. Nor am I particularly witty when it comes to speaking. I tend to stumble a lot over my words when speaking to other people. I tend to repeat myself and get nervous easily. Even typing something longer form like this blog posting takes a lot of effort for me to think of what I would like to put down in words. I suppose this is why I ended up taking a more visual approach to creative hobbies. Why I use photography as my outlet for my imagination and find it somewhat simpler than trying to convey those same emotions using text. It is easier for me to create using photographs than it is for me to type about something hence why I have Thesarus.com open in another browser window to help me put into words my feelings here.