Cosplay Photographers and Nudes: Don’t Sh%t Where You Sleep

The West Coast photographer Richard T. Bui has been outed by cosplayer Dani Phantom for allegedly using manipulative and bullying tactics to try to get her to send him nude selfies in advance of a possible photo shoot. Once she posted screenshots of the exchange between her and Bui on Facebook, it exploded in the cosplay community.

This post isn’t about detailing the specifics of the incident. If you want an excellent article about that and other similar occurrences in the cosplay community, check out this piece from the Australian version of Kotaku. This post is a statement by Nerd Caliber that we don’t engage in such tactics and nobody associated with us ever will — or never will for long.

Let me be clear, as FirstPerson Shooter the cosplay photographer, and the Editor in Chief of Nerd Caliber — there is nothing at all wrong with photographing nudes, of cosplayers who do those or any other model who does. But it is incredibly inappropriate to try to get nudes from people who have not expressly stated an interest in doing nude photography.

I’ve been a photographer (mostly casual, mostly journalism) since high school, so about four decades now. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that I have shot nudes before. And they have been of nude models, found on modeling webites, not of cosplayers — like the featured photo above, taken about 10 years ago.

It doesn’t matter how revealing a costume a cosplayer might be wearing — from Felicia of Darkstalkers to Witchblade — it is still a costume and is in no way an invitation to a photographer that the cosplayer wants to get naked for your camera.

Any rational, decent person would no more ask for nudes while they are shooting cosplayers for the amazing costumes than they would when shooting a wedding. In either case, you as a photographer have a specific shooting mission, and nude photography isn’t it. More to the point, any decent, rational photographer should also be no more likely to approach a cosplayer outside of a cosplay situation for nude photos than that photographer would approach the members of a wedding party after the wedding.

So our pledge to you is that no photographer for Nerd Caliber will ever do anything like what Bui is alleged to have done. If we find out (with proof) that anyone has, that person will no longer be working with us.

For you cosplayers, I know it is difficult, but please speak up like Dani Phantom and now others have, any time some photographer tries to pull something like what Bui is alleged to have done. It will help the community as a whole, and help keep it from happening to you again.

Now, I am off to a wedding, of a cosplayer, and I will not be asking anyone there to pose nude for me or send me nude selfies.