FirstPerson Shooter’s Favorite Shots From 2024
OK, technically the title should have been “Some Of FirstPerson Shooter’s Favorite Shots From 2024.” There are plenty more to choose from in this admittedly slower than usual year, 2024. Well, slower than pre-pandemic usual, I guess. Pretty typical of post- (or late-stage if you prefer) pandemic years as far as number of conventions I’ve attended.
Even though there are little more than a dozen pictures in this selection, I’ve still put them into a Smugmug gallery that is linked below, instead of putting them directly into this article. There’s no point in stretching the limits of our hosting storage when we are already paying for Smugmug to host the photos. So, when I describe some of the photos in the gallery, you’ll have to click through to see what I am talking about.
There are pictures from almost every convention I went to this past year, with one exception — Granite State Comic Con. I misremembered the color of the walls in the new location they put us, and didn’t bring anything along that could fix that, like a backdrop. They photos are useable as a record of the convention and cosplay, but nothing in those galleries would ever be one of my favorites of any year.
With all that out of the way, some of my favorite photos of 2024 included:
From Arisia — cosplay_buttercup as Gollum. Just hilarious and perfectly timed for the May 2023 release of arguably one of the worst games ever made, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.
From Anime Boston — A two-fer from AB 2024. First is a group of unknown cosplayers all cosplaying as 2024’s best girl Frieren from Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. But then, I was asked by adrian.d.spider to try to get a shot of him doing a Pete Townshend guitar jump-and-strum as Hobie Brown. I took a few shots to be sure, but we got it in this first try.
From PAX East — Because the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center was undergoing renovations, we couldn’t set up at either of our usual front-lobby locations in 2024. I chose to go back to where I first shot for Nerd Caliber, the top floor, west side, all the way back. That meant much fewer cosplayers wandering by to ask for photos. However, quite a few fans of Nerd Caliber came by, including on Saturday this awesome Critical Role group, including nocloudcosplay, _brookesmart_, jelliclekacie, voidfishcosplay, and heavenlysaturncosplay.
From Fan Expo Boston — For one time only, Fan Expo Boston moved from the above-mentioned BCEC to the Hynes Convention Center for 2024. With the exception of a few badge hiccups, I didn’t mind the new location, but it was clear it was too small for the biggest comic con in Boston. Still, I have three photos from that con I consider among my favorites. First is one of the best cosplay portraits I’ve done, of midgardiancosplay as Nanami from Jujutsu Kaisen. Next is odd.rolls and trashcan8574 as Francis Dolarhyde and Freddie Lounds from the final season of Hannibal. Finally, the unknown cosplayer who I saw standing in front of the chocolate booth next to my studio, wearing a strangely familiar green heavy work short and a puffy red winter vest. When he moved and I saw the metal mask in his hand, I had to interrupt the vendor and ask him, “Excuse me, but are you cosplaying as MF DOOM?” He was surprised I recognized it, and said yes, and I proceeded to try very hard to not scare him away from my photo studio by geeking out too hard.
From Wicked Comic Con — In 2023, Wicked Comic Con had its turn moving to the Hynes, from it first-year location of the Westin Waterfront hotel, attached to the BCEC. Last year it moved back, but to a much later date in the year, which wasn’t a big hit with the con management. I got a great space in the hallway just outside one of the entrances to the main dealer’s room. From that con I have two photos: first of lostsanitycosplays as Magneto from the new X-Men 97 cartoon, then one of the best shots I’ve taken of alainerdcosplay, as White Widow from the indie comic of the same name.
From PopCult Anime Con — I almost didn’t include anything from PopCult this past year. Not because the cosplays weren’t great — as is typical for the con, they were awesome. I just didn’t like the flat lighting I was getting with just a single flash. But I have to give props to the group that cosplayed as characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, including daddyspookums, the1985ronin and argenys_maria.
As mentioned, I don’t have any photos from GraniteCon 2024, which was my last convention of the year. But I did do a bunch of location shoots later on, including three from our Cape Cod Cosplay Photoshoot Weekend just before Halloween, and two different witch shoots for Halloween. From the Cape Cod event I have shots of my cousin ldcos618 as the Armorer from The Mandalorian and as Vessel from the London-based band Sleep Token. Also from that weekend is makermage as the Matron of Ravens from the animated series Vox Machina. Shout out to kbrophystudio for assists with lighting in all three photo sets.
Finally, for Halloween I took photos of riddleyleenick as a witch of her own design in a beautiful and historic cemetery in Massachusetts. Then I took photos of inevitablebetrayal as Agatha Harkness on the Witches’ Road, in a location just yards from my apartment, just off one of the oldest rail trail conversions in the Bay State.
To be clear, 2025 is going to be a difficult year for many people, many of my friends and friends of Nerd Caliber included. Still, I hope to get even more good photos of wonderful cosplayers in the coming year.
We now use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries and will post all photos there, with a link to each gallery in its own gallery article. This will allow us to give you higher resolution images to download — still for free.
To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.
If you like our work and want to show your appreciation, feel free to tip us at Ko-fi or become a patron on Patreon.
Also, High-res images for sale is back!
If you are pictured in any of our galleries and want the high-resolution (3200 pixels at its widest by 300dpi) download for yourself, we can make it available via a private Smugmug link, for $10 per image. Just send an email to editor AT nerdcaliber.com. Currently limited to only photos taken by FirstPerson Shooter (aka Rodney Brown).
