Interview GET!

I’m not sure why I’ve never done an interview on CostumeGetthese past 6 years since I’ve conducted countless Q&A’s in my previous dayjob. That oversight gets rectified now with a chat with one of thephotographers I’ve become a fan of on flickr, Mr. Muggles. 

CosGet: How did you get started in photography?

Mr. Muggles: I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd and was introducedto the world of fandom and cosplay in 2006 when I attended my first HPconvention in Las Vegas. After returning home, I quickly regretted not having asingle photo of the great costumes I saw, or the new friends I met so Ipurchased a basic point-and-shoot. Long story short, I had so much fun playingthe event photographer at the following conventions that I began to pursuephotography as a hobby.

CG: Do you have any formal photography training?

MM: No, but I've spent countless hours scouring the web fortutorials and reading everything I can find about photography and lighting.

CG: Who influenced your style or is/was an inspiration toyour work?

MM: I can't think of a single dominant influence, but Icertainly owe much to folks like David Hobby and Zack Arias for their tutorialsand generous knowledge sharing. Aside from that, perhaps the biggest influencecomes from wedding photographers as they shoot with many of the same challengesas hallway cosplay photogs--that is, low-light, high iso and a hybrid of photojournalism and narrative.

CG: Is cosplay your favorite subject? If so why, if not whatis your favorite?

MM: Dramatic visual narrative is what I'm artistically andcreatively drawn to capture and create and Cosplay set me on that path. I'vebeen experimenting with more deliberate editorial styles lately, but I suspectthat I'll always be rooted in photographing people in lavish costumes whetherthe inspiration is Anime, literary characters, or drawn just from myimagination.

CG: Describe your routine when preparing to go to an eventlike Anime Expo?

MM: Shooting a convention like AX can be thoroughlyexhausting--it's not uncommon for me to go non-stop for 8-10 hours with only abrief lunch break. Given that, I try to travel as light as possible. The nightbefore the event, I'll review my gear and whittle my bag down to just theessentials. Also, I try to get lots of sleep beforehand, although that neverseems to happen somehow =P.

CG: What is your workflow after getting back from an event?

MM: I shoot raw and import the files into Lightroom. Fromthere, I typically crop if necessary and adjust the tone curve to give theimage more punch, sharpen and then export. I don't often round-trip intoPhotoshop, but will do so if there's heavy spot removal required.

CG: Is your day job photography related? If not, isphotography something you want to pursue professionally full time?

MM: My job isn't (typically) photography related, but I workfor Yahoo! and have had the good fortune of being asked to cover events such asBlizzcon and E3 as a direct result of coworkers hearing about my cosplayphotography. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be additionalopportunities in the future.

CG: What are you shooting with now? Are you satisfied withit?

MM: I'm currently shooting a Nikon D700--it's light yearsahead of my abilities, so if I ever complain, take those comments with a grainof salt ;-). That said, I wouldn't mind dual memory cards as I've had twoseparate memory card scares where, for one heart-stopping moment, I thought Ihad lost a good chunk of my day's work. Other than that, I wouldn't mind evenbetter low-noise performance, but that's always a given.

Poison, a CosGet favorite character and outfit.

CG: Any tips for others who want to attend events and shoot?

MM: Know your gear. Get to the point where you're intimatelyfamiliar with your camera's quirks and begin to think like your light meter!Also, spend the time to size up your environment before you start shooting. Inparticular, look for interesting backgrounds and especially "pools oflight" if you're shooting natural light. As you begin taking photos, don'tbe afraid to provide gentle direction to your subject--"quarter turn toyour left", "chin up slightly". Also, think before, during, andafter every shot. Ask yourself what you did right, or what could be improved.Perhaps most important, though, is to be polite and considerate--don'tinterrupt a cosplayer if they're obviously busy (eating), or rushing off to apanel. Besides just good manners, a little professionalism will generally putyour subject more at ease which improves your chances of getting a good"performance".

Thanks so much to Mr. Muggles for your time and keep up the great work!

There has never been a Kiki's Delivery Service game, but this pic too damn cute not to post. ADORABLE!

what the green movement got wrong gm? channel 4

what the green movement got wrong channel 4, this is a very good documentary i am watching right now on channel 4 and shows that the green movement used too much fear tactics in there message, and ended up causing more damage then good in a lot of areas.

one area that the green movement has had to take a look back over was there insistence that nuclear power should be avoided at all costs, and to stop america building 40 nuclear power stations per decade, which the green movement had success with.

so the problem was that by stopping america and other countries building as many nuclear power stations, more coal power stations where built instead, and so the greens had caused more coal power stations to be built, by blacklisting nuclear power.

now the green movement is looking to increase nuclear power now in a turn around to once being anti nuclear power, because the green movement see that nuclear is cleaner then coal, due to nuclear not causing green house gasses, though some people doubt the claims that there is a green house gas causing global warming.

but what is true is that coal does give off gases that might not be clean in the environment.

at the end of the day the green movement was always way too reactionary which in the end made them push there agenda in the wrong ways, rather then working with people and meeting them half way the green movement ended up alienating people to there green cause.

i do not think gm crops are safe though, the greens are now starting to say more gm crops are needed, but why alter crops when mother nature already provides healthy food, that can be grown on mass, gm crops are not needed and are dangerous to health, so the greens should not start pushing toxic gm foods.

on pesticides they said that they stopped the use of ddt, but this had a effect on stopping its use in africa where ddt was stopping malaria and before it had chance to clear up a lot of malaria in africa the use of ddt was stopped.

but gm is bad and does need to be stopped, franken food is not good food at the end of the day, when mother nature provides all the food the world needs, gm food is not needed, and has proven health problems.

gm foods being grown in america are to blame for killing off the american honey bee's, why is this not being mentioned on this documentary, america farms are using gm corn and wheat etc for about the last 15 years, and as that happened the number of bee's in america started to die off.

because the honey bees cannot handle the pesticides that grafted inside a gm plant, basically gm crops are designed to be toxic to insects to stop these insects eating the crop, so the bees come along and try to get pollen nectar from these plants to make honey and end up getting poisoned by the toxic gm crops.

the bugs get used to the gm crops, so the poison grafted into a gm plant is made more stronger, and americans are eating the poison left over in the plants as well as the bees the bees are dying off in america.


this below about gm killing honey bees



"To: World Governments

Something is killing honey bees, and even as billions are dropping dead across the world, researchers are scrambling to find answers and save one of the most important crop pollinators on Earth.

What is called "colony collapse disorder" hit bee keepers all over the world including half of the US last spring. Now it has spread to all but a handful of states.

Hives can go from healthy and active to dead and gone.

"In the Australian story, researchers have dissected bees that have died, and they have found that their immune systems have "totally gone to pieces".

As the global collapse of honeybee populations threatens the sustainability of the world food supply, some European organizations are at least trying to do something about it. Today, Britain's largest agriculture co-op announced it would ban eight pesticides thought to be causing colony collapse disorder. (One of them is called imidacloprid.)

In Germany's Baden-Württemberg state, 500 million bees died in Spring 2008, due to the insecticidal seed treatment agent clothianidin. Another example is the case of a Swabian beekeeper, who destroyed his whole honey harvest because it contained pollen of the GM corn MON810, after an administrative court declared the honey as 'non marketable'.

So far, there are few answers, but there is a long list of possibilities, which include pesticides and genetically modified crops, also known as GMOs or GMs.

However, I have been learning that not much is known about the accumulating impact of pesticides on insects, animals and even people when you consider, in this modern world how many combinations of pesticides are used. One pesticide by itself might not destroy honey bees, but what happens when farmers spray herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides on land that also has genetically modified crops with pesticides built-in?
The United States grows nearly two-thirds of all genetically engineered crops. Last year about 130 million acres were planted with GMs. Much of the soy, corn, cotton and canola have had a gene inserted into their DNA to produce pesticides systemically throughout the plants created and patented by Monsanto. Monsanto also produces genetically modified crops designed not to die when herbicides are sprayed on them. In a perfect biotech world, only the weeds would be killed. But Mother Nature has a way of outwitting human designs. So, now the weeds are becoming resistant to the herbicide sprays and frustrated farmers are putting on more and more poisons.

What this genetically engineered trait does is allow a farmer to spray the herbicide right on the crop, which would have killed the crop, would kill the soybeans, prior to introduction of this gene. The gene comes from a type of bacteria that is found in the soil and it makes the plant immune to the herbicide.

The consequence of this is that glyphosate and Roundup, which is sold by Monsanto - the same company that also sells the seed of the type of soybeans that are immune or resistant to the herbicide - that herbicide has become the most widely used herbicide in the world. The consequence of that is you have one particular herbicide used on a tremendous amount of acreage in the U. S. and elsewhere, especially Argentina and Brazil.

As any biologist would expect, when you have such tremendous pressure on weeds to try to survive this herbicide, some of the weeds that are resistant are selected for and all their competition is killed off. The resistant weeds then proliferate and can no longer be controlled by glyphosate. Then you have a situation where the use of this herbicide has gone up, and on probably millions of acres, other herbicides are having to be used as well as glyphosate in order to control the resistant weeds.

So, what we've been seeing in the past few years is that the overall level of herbicide use is increasing, and it will almost inevitably continue to increase. In this case, it's causing the rise of these resistant weeds and the increased use of herbicides and potentially, may be harming amphibians to boot.

The active ingredient in Round-up is the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. Glyphosate's mode of action is to inhibit an enzyme involved in the synthesis of the amino acids tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine. It is absorbed through foliage and translocated (moves through plant sap) to growing points. Weeds and grass will generally re-emerge within one to two months after usage. Because of this mode of action, it is only effective on actively growing plants. Round-up is not effective as a "pre-emergence herbicide." Monsanto also produces seeds which grow into plants genetically engineered to be tolerant to glyphosate which are known as Round-up Ready crops. The genes contained in these seeds are patented. Such crops allow farmers to use glyphosate as a post-emergence pesticide against both broadleaf and cereal weeds. Soybeans were the first Round-up Ready crop, which was produced at Monsanto's Agracetus Campus located in Middleton, Wisconsin. Current Round-up Ready crops include corn, sorghum, cotton, soybeans, canola and alfalfa.

So here we have it: GMO's Round-up and other pesticides are killing our Bee's, without them the whole world will face starvation!

It is the big pharmaceutical companies that need to be stopped. In the end, they will not only be killing bees, they will be killing us.

Its time we do something!
Kill the poison, save the Bees!

Sincerely,".

bit above about honey bees from this websitepetitiononline

GM GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD KILLS HONEY BEES

Look What the Rapist Dragged In?

Today on the Noon Lunch Whistle I got a request for two from Poison: "Fallen Angel" and "I Want Action."  Which led to the revelation that Bret "Rock of Love" Michaels may be condoning rape.

I've been listening to Poison for over 20 years.  Look What the Cat Dragged In and Open Up and Say Ahh... were two of the first cassettes I ever owned.  "I Want Action" was released as a single in 1987.  It's a great song about checking out the hot girls and wanting to get laid - something every straight guy in America can identify with.

But it wasn't until today that I noticed the following lyrics:

I can't wait to get my hands on them
I won't give up until they give in

Is it just me or did Bret Michaels just tell us all that he'll keep pressuring some girl to have sex until she finally says "yes"?  OK, maybe that's not so bad.  Lots of young horny guys ask their girlfriends for sex, the girls say no, so the guys wait and ask again later.  Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but you're still trying to get some.  Fine.  But then the following lines say this...

Now I'm not looking for a love that lasts
I need a shot and I need it fast
If I can't have her, I'll take her and make her.

Yep.  Bret Michaels just sang that if the girl says no, he'll kidnap and rape her.  WTF?  Am I the only one who's noticed this?

My Three Songs: 08/09/10

1. Def Leppard - Rocket
2. Ozzy Osbourne - Bark at the Moon
3. Bad Company - Shooting Star

Theme :: Rock Drummers.  Ringo Starr of The Beatles, Keith Moon of The Who, and Rikki Rockett of Poison.  Mr. Rockett celebrated his 49th birthday yesterday.