PAX East 2022 Cosplay & Photography Shoot-Out

As always, the amazing fans at PAX East came ready to play. For our second Cosplay & Photography Shoot-Out at PAX, we had another great crowd full of creative cosplayers and photographers. The audience voted on the theme for the 10 teams to use for their creative storytelling photo, and it was a challenging theme: “Save Point.” As always, everyone came up with clever, creative, compelling photos that made great use of the available time, location, and in some cases, ATMs and medical gurneys.

To recap how the Shoot-Out works: we randomly pair up two cosplayers with a photographer by pulling their names from hats to create 10 teams. Teams have 20 minutes to make an image that they think best tells the story of the theme the audience voted for. The panelists pick the image they think best represents that theme, and the audience picks their choice for a prize by loudest applause.

The photo below is from the winning team. And they are … drum roll, please … @team_splenda (photographer), @gabbyreinartz & @superbones5000 (cosplayers). The panelists all felt that Team 7 really captured the theme “Save Point” by putting a cosplayer in the gurney (bonus points for talking the medics into giving permission!) and using their body positions and body language to indicate the point in the game, the emotion of getting to the save point (and possibly not making it in time, if the body on the gurney is an indication). The audience also agreed and voted this for the Audience Appreciation Award.

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Thanks to our wonderful panelists Gogo Incognito, Spectra_v3, and Rodney Brown. From all of us and everyone at Nerd Caliber, a huge thanks and major props to everyone who participated – we know how challenging it is to work together with people you just met to make a photo that captures an idea in only 20 minutes. Every one of you is an amazing artist and a fierce competitor!

Team 1
Photographer: @Divisionten
Cosplayers: @cosplayKTTEA & @lindg.35