Oni-Con 2012 Review
Oni-con returned to Galveston, TX this year at the Galveston Island Convention Center. It is the convention’s ninth year and took place on October 19-21, 2012. The gulf coast and beach make this Texas anime convention unique. I was especially excited over having the Earthbound Papas return as guest of honor this year since I am huge fan of Nobou Uematsu, the composer for many of the Final Fantasy games.
I started off with a few shoots before the Earthbound Papa’s concert on Friday. After meeting up with some friends, I found some shade and did a mini-shoot at the Hilton hotel at the pool area.
I then headed to the San Luis Resort hotel. This is my favorite out of the three hotels that are available for Oni-Con. The inside and outside is gorgeous for photoshoot locations. I look forward to going back to this con each year just to do some shoots here. I did this particular shoot at a waterfall in front of this hotel. This was almost at sunset so the light was very pleasant.
My next shoot followed up at the same location. I was really taking advantage of the time of the day because during the morning and afternoon this location has so much harsh light on a sunny day.
I had a little bit of a break before the concert started. I got my long 70-200mm lens just in case and arrived at the main event. I felt very fortunate to find out that the press photographers were placed in front of a gate at the foot of the stage. I had to use my widest lens on hand, the 24-70mm, to get my shots. Unfortunately I had gotten sick right before the concert started and missed about the first half of it before I was able to recover. I was so glad that I was still able to get shots or else I would have felt like I missed a once in a lifetime opportunity! Here are a couple of my favorites.
Their performance was so wonderfully played! The Earthbound Papas had an autograph session right after the concert that I took advantage of. Usually it is tradition for the band to celebrate after a performance, but they had a 4 AM flight to Hawaii so they had to leave the convention early.
Saturday started off returning to the San Luis Resort for all my shoots that afternoon. All the hotels face the gulf where the sunrises. It was a really sunny day with hardly any clouds in the sky so it limited me to finding just shaded spots to do shoots at, but I didn’t have trouble finding any. The entrance to the hotel and the hotel’s gazebo provided plenty of shade and pretty backgrounds on the outside.
One of my favorite shots of the con was taken inside the San Luis. On the opposite side of this portion of the wall were the same pieces of furniture, so looking into the mirrors gave the infinity illusion which you can see the start of in the photo.
After having a late lunch, I made it back in time to the convention for the cosplay contest to start. I got a nice seat on the floor in front of the judges table. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the walk-ons.
I had my last shoot to do after the contest ended which was a joint shoot with Filmshooter and Lemon-ikon Photography. We headed back to the San Luis once more and came to this long hallway. It was night and kinda dark inside when a waitress opened a side door leading outside allowing the wind to blow in. It led to a much more dramatic shot. The waitress apologized to us for passing by during our shoot, but I should have thanked her!
Oni-con’s 10th year will take place on November 1-3, 2013 and pre-registration has opened. At the end of the Earthbound Papa’s concert it was said that they will be back next year, so I’ll be keeping my fingers cross and look forward for their return next year.
Here is a gallery of my most favorite pics from the con. If you are interested in following my work, you can like me on facebook http://www.facebook.com/FallingFeathers.net or visit my site at www.fallingfeathers.net.
