In some ways the final shoot of the 2020 Wellington Cosplay Photofest was the one I was looking for the most. The R-Bar is located in Cuba Street and is a pirate themed bar. Until last year I didn’t even know it existed when it was used for the social of the 2019 PhotoFest.

I spoke to the manager on the night and have wanted to get back and shoot there again ever since. So this year, when the opportunity presented itself to book slots over the weekend I jumped at it.

After the fourth cosplayer I was supposed to shoot pulled out I was assigned Tamara, and by that stage the location was booked. Tamara is a professional costume designer and one of her outfits fitted the location perfectly.

Lighting in the bar is fairly low and I wanted to insure that the ambient came through in the images. The achieve this I told Tamara that I would be shooting with long exposures so she needed to hold her poses. She did this perfectly. The strobes were set to fire at the end of the exposure.

This mixed lighting meant that you could meter for it and all shots were based on trial and error and seeing what looked good in the back of the camera.

I really enjoyed the time there and could see it used in future shoots.