Farewell, PopCult Anime Con – Cosplay Gallery Part 1

This past weekend, Aug. 23 and 24, was the final go for the still young convention PopCult Anime Con. After nine conventions since it was founded in 2016 (although it was a virtual con in 2020 for understandable reasons), the founder and manager known in the community as Hemlock Inyx decided that it was too much of a challenge to keep the slowly growing convention going.

Launched in the busy convention scene of the mid-2010s, the convention spent all years until the pandemic shutdown in 2020 at the Sheraton in Framingham, Mass. In late 2020, after the general hotel business collapse during the shutdown, the hotel was sold at auction to the bank that held its primary mortgage, which promptly sold it to the hotel development company XSS Hotels. While I don’t know if it was based on a decision by hotel management to not host nerd conventions, or some form of pricing change, the two legacy nerd conventions that used the hotel, Super MegaFest and PopCult, both found new homes in 2021. PopCult moved to the Westin Waltham, closer to Boston.

I’ve been taking photos at PopCult since the very first convention, and in 2021 Hemlock reached out to me to see if I would be willing to photograph cosplayers as the semi-official convention studio. Since then, I’ve had a dedicated space to set up my portable studio and take photos of cosplayers, which the convention shares with its attendees via links to our galleries.

With the word “anime” right in its title, PopCult has always been an anime-first convention, but like all conventions it welcomes all forms of fandoms, particularly when it comes to cosplay. For example, while most of the panels and events are focused on anime, there was a panel this year on how to photograph your figurines or dolls.

It took me longer than I anticipated to get set up, in part because I forgot one light modifier, a gridded softbox, that I usually use. But once I was up and running by about 10:20, I was busy almost all day. I found out during the day that I wouldn’t be able to attend on Sunday, so I stayed until after the Masquerade event ended, packing up at 8:30 p.m. So, from my one day at the convention I have three well-stuffed galleries, each with more than 100 photos.

Cosplayers in this first gallery include balletwitchery, busyasabeecosplay, silverfalconcosplay, apocalypse.unicorn, hannibananicosplay, _dannylion_, Mink the Satyr Cosplay, breadcosplay, saurianwarriorcosplay, pandamonium_cosplay1282, rpwguitar_nerdsmagician, kali.daydream, ndiaz.cos, millie_halprin, DoodnCoovoo Cosplay, bythe_outsider, kaworukummies, atticus._.cos, kikou_koi_koi, magical_antics, mistykristicosplay, crystaldragoncynzi, a.mal.gam, kirirosecosplay, angelique_artistryy, faith.fit.blerd, chellebellecosplay, deshsaionji, and many more.

We use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries. 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).