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ET·019 Cosplay 2024

Lucca, the characters

cosplay up close, no stage

category
Cosplay
year
2024
location
Lucca
frames
6
status
developed and fixed
A cosplayer in full fantasy armor poses on the walls of Lucca, warm late-afternoon light, trees in the background.
▸

the work

I go to Lucca Comics for the people, not the costumes. Or rather: for the moment the two stop being separable.

There are people who spend a year on a suit of armor and then talk about it with the same seriousness I bring to film stock. I get it. These frames chase that seriousness, and the moments it cracks: a laugh out of character, a kid who believes.

▸

the sequence

click for the full-screen print
Close-up of a cosplayer with stage makeup for an anime character, blue wig, looking into the lens, neutral shaded background.
#01 Two hours of makeup. The least I could do was find her the right shade.
A group of cosplayers laughing together in a crowded street, colorful costumes, an unposed moment.
#02 The real photo is always between two poses.
Close detail of a cosplayer's gloved hands gripping a prop sword, raking light showing the craft of the hilt.
#03 Three months on the hilt, he told me. You can tell.
A cosplayer in a dark cloak at the end of an empty Lucca alley, faint haze backlit, cobblestones in the foreground.
#04 An empty alley in Lucca during Comics is a miracle. It lasted forty seconds.
A child stares open-mouthed at a cosplayer in a superhero costume crouching down toward him, blurred crowd around them.
#05 For the kid it was real. For forty seconds, for me too.