PAX East 2025 Friday Gallery Part 3 of 4
One of the advantages of renting the powerful 400ws Westcott lights we used in the studio at PAX East 2025 was the ability to really customize the balance between the main light and the key light. In this third Friday gallery you can see one of the biggest disadvantages. Tom of Extreme Costumes came by Room 106 for both photos and some cosplay repair. He was wearing one of his latest creations, an original concept of a cyberpunk samurai armor. The armor looked great of course, and the LED lights were awesome. But under the power of the studio flashes, those LEDs were completely overwhelmed and barely showed up. That’s why there are a couple of photos I took with the flashes turned off, to show off Tom and his team’s LED work.
Also in this gallery is the guitar I mentioned in yesterday’s post. The Mandalorian cosplayer in this gallery turned an electric guitar into his rifle, but it wasn’t working when he came into the room. Some time and lots of work by Castro of GiveWave Studios and the Mando was once again shredding. He even came back for photos after I told him to quiet down. If you’ve ever seen me shoot in a crowded room or space, you know I make that request fairly often.
Friday I also got a visit from one of the best cosplay photographers around, David of dtjaaaam. That marks what I am calling a new pattern of David visiting New England conventions from the Pacific Northwest — he was at Fan Expo Boston last summer too. Many years ago, I tried to recruit David to shoot for Nerd Caliber, but even at that early stage he was already well known enough that his Instagram account got him press access to most cons he wanted to go to, so he politely declined. Probably a good call for him, and definitely a loss for us. We had a discussion about shooting at Boston convention centers (he liked the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center better than the Hynes). I gave him tips on some of the awesome shooting locations right around the Hynes, should he ever come back for a convention located there.
In this third of four Friday galleries are cosplayers susieqcosplay, bostonbeecosplay, not.very.artistic, kaylagluf13, gabungybungy, carlsona95, icybroseidon, craftycontraptions, madjimivanvai, itspeepohere, planetdrewpiter, phoebzorphoebe, ravy_nevermore, crimsonchained, mechaghoul, ricekrispi__, ro_in_wonderland, lovegutzu, mini_quinni, chellebellecosplay, audrinator.ttv, meshla.morut, ixneedxaxlife, ladysapphira, gobbo_mashugana, harleypan, achow1337, and many more.
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).
