Salute to Supernatural Pasadena 2015

On the Monday following DenverCon, I made my way across to Pasadena for the convention there the following weekend. It was really different being able to say, “well I didn’t get such great shots at that panel, but I’ll have another chance in a week.” Usually you have your one shot and then it’s months before the next. I did try not to use it as an excuse to be lazy, or complacent in Denver though!

PasCon was a standout for me in so many ways. There were so many people I knew there, I got to see so many friends and familiar faces. My good friend Michelle, who I first met when I sat next to her at BurCon two years ago, was kind enough to drive us around for the few days before the con started. The weather was perfect. I love California.

 

 

As far as my photography goes, the standout for me was both Karaoke and the Louden Swain Saturday Night Special. Anyone reading these blogs will know that I am extremely critical of my photography, but both of these times something in me clicked and I just felt it all really working. I don’t know how else to explain it. You know those images that show what happens when a key fits into a lock properly and all the tumblers move into place? It was kind of like that.

 

Richard Speight Jr and Rob Benedict, Karaoke PasCon 2015

 

Briana Buckmaster, Karaoke PasCon 2015

 

Matt Cohen, Karaoke, PasCon 2015

 

Again, it was the Saturday Night Special that I truly found the most challenging and the most rewarding to shoot. I thought it would be especially bittersweet because it was the last of the year, but instead it felt like a huge celebration, an acknowledgement that they have found this amazing event that they want to hold onto and share into next year. Of course I cried, but that was a given.

 

Rob Benedict, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special PasCon 2015

 

Briana Buckmaster, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special PasCon 2015

 

Chris Schmelke, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special PasCon 2015

 

Osric Chau, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, PasCon 2015

 

Richard Speight Jr, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, PasCon 2015

 

Rob Benedict, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, PasCon 2015

 

PasCon was also the first time I got to properly photograph Briana Buckmaster and Kathryn Newton, and I fell for them both. So lovely and funny!

 

Kathryn Newton, PasCon 2015

 

Briana Buckmaster, PasCon 2015

 

2015 was a big year for the Supernatural conventions. It was the 10th anniversary, there were more dates in different cities, bigger venues and the Louden Swain Saturday Night Special truly became a big monster event of its own. But at its heart, these were still the same conventions that they have always been. Some things will change, get bigger, get smaller. But some things will always be the same.

It’s the waiting in the lobby when you check in to your hotel wondering who else is there for the same convention, until you spot someone with a Family Business shirt and you know you’re in the right place. It’s your room at the start of a weekend,  an explosion of schedules and highlighters and different coloured tickets and lanyards and cosplay and phone chargers and SD cards for cameras. There’s the same nervous excitement waiting around for the doors to open before Karaoke late on a Friday night, laughing about being Friday People even though your feet already hurt and you could probably fall asleep if you sat down long enough. There is still the feeling of the sound of your heartbeat almost drowning out the music in Chris’ photo op room while you watch other people pose for photo ops and you wait your turn. There’s the butterflies when you wake up each morning and try desperately to force in breakfast because you know it’s probably the only decent food you’ll have all day. There’s still that feeling when your last autograph is done on a Sunday, and you start to see people leaving and you wonder if you’ll ever get used to what that feels like.

2015 was a big year, but 2016 will be bigger. The same but different. I think I’m ready for it.

All Hell Breaks Loose VI Melbourne and Sydney

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the Australian Supernatural conventions All Hell Breaks Loose VI in both Melbourne and Sydney. It promised to be a huge affair – the last time Jensen Ackles or Jared Padalecki had attended a convention in Australia was six years ago. Unfortunately, before the convention Jared had to pull out due to exhaustion, and Hub Productions who run the con were able to bring out the wonderful Timothy Omundson in his stead.

Hub Productions aren’t as photog-friendly as other conventions; you are only able to take photographs for the first five minutes of each panel. So that hampered me in both cities, and then Sydney my seat was in the very last row! So unfortunately I was only able to get a few photographs in Melbourne. But I was happy with the few photos I could manage, and then for something different I decided to post process the majority of the photos in colour. The Plenary, where the Melbourne convention was held, is this huge majestic building with amazing lighting so it gave the photos a really interesting look – a unique mix of the very grand and the very intimate.

Timothy Omundson, AHBL6 Melbourne

Osric Chau, AHBL6 Melbourne

Mark Sheppard, AHBL6 Melbourne

Jensen Ackles, AHBL6 Melbourne

The hardest to capture were Matt Cohen and Richard Speight Jr, who always refuse to stay on stage during their panels.

Matt Cohen, AHBL6 Melbourne

Richard Speight Jr, AHBL6 Melbourne

My favourite photo of the day was probably this one of Timothy Omundson, and I went back to my usual default editing style because it just felt so moody and it was too much of an opportunity to pass up!

Timothy Omundson, AHBL6 Melbourne

I had a wonderful time catching up with friends and as always photographing this amazing cast. This is my last Supernatural convention until (hopefully!) Vancouver in August. There is OZ Comic Con here in Melbourne next month though, so I’m hoping to get to that!

Salute to Supernatural San Francisco 2015

The 2015 Supernatural convention circuit kicked off in January in beautiful San Francisco, California.

I’d never been to San Francisco, so as well as getting to do the convention I was excited to explore a bit for a couple of days after the convention.

Alcatraz, San Francisco

 

Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco

 

Giraffe, San Francisco Zoo

 

The conventions started out with a bang – this is what I’ll call The Big Convention Year, celebrating 10 years of Supernatural, and I think the stakes have been raised to reflect that. Creation Entertainment have invested in a huge new sound and lighting system, and the guys themselves have all been involved in shaping different aspects of the convention itself. This year, the Cabaret is being billed as the Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, which is wonderful since it encapsulates just how important Louden Swain have become to the whole convention. It really would not be the same without them, or without Richard Speight Jr running the show as the Host (or Captain of the Ship, if you prefer).

My friend I was attending the convention with hadn’t seen a Creation event for over a year, so I was excited for her to see how much of a huge production it’s become.

 

Host Richard Speight Jr kicks off SFCon 2015

 

Felicia Day, Friday SFCon 2015

 

Osric Chau, Friday SFCon 2015

 

Matt and Richard’s karaoke party theme for 2015 is “Cult Classics”, which sounded difficult at first, but is actually quite a broad well to draw from! Loads of attendees dressed up for the karaoke, which is a good sign for the rest of the year!

 

Photography by Christopher Schmelke

 

Sebastian Roche, Karaoke SFCon 2015

 

Richard Speight Jr, Karaoke SFCon 2015

 

Gil McKinney and Rob Benedict, Karaoke SFCon 2015

 

My last blog post was about how the different parts of the cons have very different feels and so I sort of approach shooting them differently. However, as I was editing my photos for SFCon, I noticed that this particular convention kind of tore up that rule book. The karaoke and the “cabaret” were the same, however the panels also had this very moody, high key lighting. It was most noticeable when the guests would walk to either side of the stage, they would be thrown into this high-key side-lighting that gave everything a very dramatic feel.

 

(l-r) Rob Benedict, Stephen Norton, Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard and Mike Borja, SFCon 2015

 

Mark Sheppard, SFCon 2015

 

Jensen Ackles, SFCon 2015

 

The Louden Swain Saturday Night Special / Cabaret is still the highlight of the convention for me. It’s difficult to describe exactly what it’s like unless you’re there to experience it, and I urge anyone who is thinking of going to the SPN cons this year to go to the Saturday concert. The guys put their heart and soul into the whole weekend, but Saturday night just feels a little bit more special, like the emotion is just that much higher.

 

Osric Chau, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special SFCon 2015

 

Christopher Schmelke, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, SFCon 2015

 

Rob Benedict and Mark Sheppard, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, SFCon 2015

 

Mike Borja and Billy Moran, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, SFCon 2015

 

Stephen Norton, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, SFCon2015

 

Gil McKinney, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, SFCon 2015

 

Matt Cohen, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, SFCon 2015

 

Rob Benedict, Louden Swain Saturday Night Special, SFCon 2015

 

The fact that this incredible band, that plays tirelessly all weekend as the houseband, is still able to put on a concert for us in the middle of it all is amazing to me and I cannot express enough how much I love it. If you’re a fan of these guys, and a fan of good music, please go and see this!

The panels were the usual heady mix of earnestness and hilarity, and it seems as though every time there is a convention there are more and more new (and younger!) people attending. I don’t think I’ll ever get over how adorable it is to hear someone get overcome when it’s their turn to ask a question at the microphone during a panel. I don’t blame them – I wouldn’t get up to ask a question, and look how many I’ve been to!

If SFCon 2015 was a sign of things to come for the rest of the convention year, we are all incredibly lucky! Here’s to 2015!

 

Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, SFCon 2015

 

Misha Collins, SFCon 2015

 

AHBL 5 // Sydney and Melbourne 2014

This time last weekend All Hell Breaks Loose 5 (AHBL), the annual Supernatural convention here in Australia, was over for another year.

This convention is run very differently to the overseas cons, in that it is held in two states over two days. Saturday is Sydney, and Sunday is Melbourne’s turn.

This year, a friend and I were going to both – flying up early Saturday morning to Sydney and flying back later that night to be in Melbourne for Sunday. Which was pretty gruelling and gave a small insight into what the actors go through.

These cons aren’t held in traditional sort of venues either – they were both held in University lecture halls, which posed unique challenges for photography. The hall in Sydney was lit quite well, but the seating was all flat so that if you were farther away (as we were) it was harder to get good shoots. In comparison, the Melbourne venue was tiered seating (like how you would imagine an actual lecture theatre) but the lighting was garish and harsh.

The con venue in Sydney

It’s frustrating at the time but looking back on it, it’s actually helpful to keep having tests like this thrown at you; different environments, different lighting conditions. The trick is to not panic and instead to adapt.

Misha Collins, Richard Speight Jr and Matt Cohen, AHBL 5 Sydney, 2014

The photos that I got – especially in Sydney – are definitely not my strongest but they are a record of my experience. And they are proof that I could stick at it even when things were really hard.

Matt Cohen, AHBL 5 Sydney 2014

Melbourne was a bit easier, but again it wasn’t ideal. The lighting was the great obstacle there. I’m having a real love affair with black and white at the moment, and I decided to use that for Melbourne’s photos. I know it’s a mistake to rely on black and white conversions to cover you when your exposures are less than stellar, and I have been guilty of that before. But there was something in a lot of these photos that suited black and white. Because I didn’t use flash and my lens isn’t technically “fast” (the aperture at it’s widest is f/4, which isn’t as ideal for inside work) I had my ISO pushed way up which resulted in lots of noise. But this sort of married with the black and white and produced an almost film-like quality.

Mark Sheppard, AHBL 5, Melbourne 2014

Richard Speight Jr, AHBL 5, Melbourne 2014

They still took a lot of cleaning up in Lightroom and Photoshop, and I was pretty ruthless when I was culling them and so ended up with not very many images. But I did stick it out, so I can be proud about that!

Misha Collins, AHBL 5 Melbourne 2014

 

If you would like to see more images from both Sydney and Melbourne, please see the gallery here

Evocative // Jus In Bello V, 2014

This was probably one of the most difficult conventions I’ve photographed. Some of what was affecting me was external, but a lot of what I was fighting against was internal. I’d been struggling in a bad headspace for a little while before the convention – I think I spoke about how hard it was getting for me to keep up with my 365 Project – and so I went into it not as mentally prepared as I would otherwise be.

(This is me being extremely honest on my blog. Hopefully I won’t come to regret this one day lol)

One of the first days there, my friends and I went on a Hop On – Hop Off tour of Rome which was amazing. It was so much to take in and photograph! It was a very bright day, and shooting in the dreaded full blown glare of midday was tough but I managed to get some photos I was proud of. I also realised that landscape photography is definitely not a strength for me – landscape should show a sense of scale, especially somewhere like Rome and I was too stuck on details to really capture the immensity of the architecture.

When I was editing I was conscious of the grittiness in the texture of all the statues, and how even if you completely strip away every layer of colour that rawness doesn’t fade or lessen in impact. I went for almost a High Definition look, which sort of makes me nervous but it’s fun to experiment!

Then the convention really got started on Friday. I was fortunate enough to win a spot on Roman Holiday after there was a cancellation, so after months of being distraught over not being able to have that opportunity I was actually there, in the middle of the beautiful Villa Torlonia, able to take photographs of the art and the architecture. And I did, but nowhere near as much as I thought.

Villa Torlonia

Okay, I told myself, you’re being choosy. You’re choosing your shots and really thinking about it. Nothing wrong with that.

But it did feel a little wrong. It felt like there was a disconnect between me and my camera. I was seeing shots in my head the whole time but I couldn’t get it to translate onto the camera.

I didn’t feel as free taking photographs of the guys either, because the rooms we were moving in where so small and restricted, and I felt self conscious about having my huge camera lens right in their faces. I like being unobtrusive, like a fly on the wall, and I felt like I couldn’t really do that this time.

Rob Benedict and Osric Chau, Roman Holiday

 

Tahmoh Penikett, Roman Holiday

It was during the actual panels at JIBCon that I noticed I was really not up to it. I haven’t edited the photos yet, only picked out one or two to see if the black and white editing works. I loved the lighting, I loved the combinations of actors in the panels. But for some reason I just couldn’t do it.

Misha Collins, JIBCon 5, 2014

Some people have said that my photography can evoke emotion, and that’s amazing to me and that’s what I strive for. But I think part of the problem is because so much of my emotion is tied into my photography, I can be held hostage by it. If I’m having a day where I am in a not-so-great headspace, the affect on my photography can be crippling. It’s almost like I will shut down, and I won’t be able to photograph anything.

That’s terrible, and probably makes me sound terrible and flighty. I need to learn to push through that – I need to be able to press the shutter button no matter what is going on around me, no matter what is going through my head.

I honestly can’t imagine myself doing anything else – I feel like this is a form of expression for me. So I need to learn to not withdraw; if I’m angry let that show. If I’m hurt, let that show too. I can’t be afraid to put all of this out there, the good and the bad.