Kumoricon is a 3-day Annual Anime Convention held in Portland, OR during Halloween Weekend. This year’s was the 28th – 30th and was accompanied by an uncharacteristic amount of sunny weather.

This year, the Convention had moved from a Dual Hotel Venue in Vancouver, WA, and its Labour Day Weekend schedule, to the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, OR, and an October schedule.

I myself was attending this year, for my second time, as a member of staff. As Photography Staff it was my job to get images of the events, panels, and general happenings going on during the weekend. I was also allowed to go where I wanted in order to get these things done. Typically this meant going into back stage areas, or jumping queues, in order to capture moments from positions and angles that regular people couldn’t get to.

The single best moment, for me, was the Cosplay Contest on Day 2 (Saturday). Cosplay, for those of you who don’t know about it yet, is a mix of the words “Costume” and “Play” and generally involves dressing up in such a fashion as to emulate a fictional character’s appearance, much like people do on Halloween. A Cosplay Contest typically incorporates two kinds of shows together: a Runway Show, where contestants come onto the stage and briefly show off their outfits in such a manner as to woo the crowd while showing off their craftsmanship. The second, is a Skit Show, where Cosplayers come onto the stage and give a performance that is flavorful to their character.

All the while the contest is narrated and commented upon a person, or persons as was the case this year, called the Master of Ceremonies, or MC for short. The MC’s job is to introduce contestants and give Skits context if there isn’t any spoken dialogue as well as offer their own commentary to keep the show interesting. Behind the scenes, there are many staff members doing their part to make sure the show flows as smoothly as possible: Live video crew broadcast the contest to large screens, as the room is rather large and filled with many people while audio and lighting techs make sure that the lights and music are perfectly timed.

As for Photography Staff, we had no less than four people (myself included) covering this event. It always proves to be an entertaining challenge for us. Each of us ends up taking a different approach and while we are shooting the same subjects we get drastically different results, but we all share the same goal. Capture a moment that we will never see again. The lights, the energy, the smiles, the amazing people who all make this happen.

This isn’t to say that the show isn’t without it’s problems. Technical issues, such as an audio tech not picking the right song, can and has happened. Typically, however, the cosplayers just don’t go on stage until their song is played, so when this hiccuped occurred it was but a brief moment. There are also moments where techs take slightly longer to switch things up between performers, so the audience is left hanging in this awkward silence. But that’s what the MCs are for; if transition takes too long they come up on stage and vamp for time, often with comical results.