With the news of a well known cosplay photographer doing atrocious and criminal acts. Here are a few tips to cosplay photographers from a cosplayer.
1. Cosplay Does Not Equal Consent.
Never ever take a cosplayers photo without there expressed consent to you. They may already have people taking their picture that does not equal consent to you to take a picture. Especially don’t be creepy and take any rude or lewd photos without consent.
2. Please don’t ask us to pose a certain way.
If we have consented to you taking our picture then please don’t tell us how to pose unless we ask you. We have decided what poses and moves we are comfortable with doing. We all have different feelings about ourselves and know what we are capable of. This also expands to groups don’t ask us to pose with a person in a ship picture if we don’t want to.
3. Don’t touch our props without asking.
We either purchased or built are props these can be very expensive and or a lot of work so unless we ask you to hold our prop please don’t touch.
4. Please don’t ask for photos if we are taking a break.
If we are eating or sitting on the floor please don’t ask for our picture we are probably tired and not ready for our picture to be taken
5. Ask if you can post/if they have social media.
Many cosplayers use social media as a platform to build themselves up or even to make money. Before you post a picture of a cosplayer you took please make sure we have said that its okay and that we gave you our accounts so you can tag us.
6. If someone hires you get back to them quickly.
If a cosplayer hires you to do a photo shoot with them don’t take an extremely long time to get back to them. We as cosplayers understand that photography may not be your only job and that you may have other work to do but please communicate with us.
