VainGlory: 2015 Autumn Finals Coverage

Over the last few decades, the gaming industry has gone through some very drastic changes. From the humble stages of Atari, to Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Playstation, Xbox, PC Gaming, Online Gaming.... the evolution has been great and very profitable. 

I was contacted to shoot a gaming tournament for a fairly new mobile game called VainGlory, that can be played on smart phones and tablets only. The concept was a bit bizarre to me since in the past, pretty beefy desktops were needed to play games like World of Warcraft, Counter Strike, League of Legends, etc. Now you can download the game for free and play it right off your mobile device. Um, that was a new one for me. 

At a very new venue called eSports Arena in Santa Ana, the first ever VainGlory Tournament was being held for the 2015 Autumn Finals. It was filled with very enthusiast players, fans, organizers, media and sponsors such as Amazon Coins. The tournament was a 3 day event starting on Friday and the finals ending on Sunday. 

One of the first things they requested from me on Day 1 was photographing every player (there was about 28 of them) on chromakey so that they can isolate them and paste the portraits on a more suitable graphic. I made the setup with a chromakey background and on each side was an Alien Bee B800 with umbrellas. This was to ensure that the light hit the background nice and evenly so that extracting the subject would be easy. If you have shadows on the background, it makes for a very long day. Then to keep the portraits more dramatic (meaning adding more shadows/contrast) I used a single B800 with a softbox and a large 48" Lastolite Difflector on the otherside. 

Here is a sample of the extracted portrait on a MVP graphic. 

The remaining parts of the tournament I had to capture moments of play and reaction. Since each round was about 20 mins long, there was a lot of downtime in between plays. Most of the time, they are facing down and there was little to capture until the end of the round was up. 

One of the more difficult parts of the gig was trying to accommodate last minute requests for group photos since we didn't have much room to shoot them around the arena. I tried to use the environment and blend with the color tones that were already existing. 

When I had the opportunity, I liked trying to grab candids of the teams before they headed to the staging area. Here is one of the younger teams strategizing before playing a higher seeded team.

The fans were great and appreciative for the opportunity to view the tournament live. The entire tournament was being fed live on Twitch's gaming broadcast.

It was a cool experience getting to know all of the team players and organizers of this wonderful event. I am a fan of anything that keeps kids and adults active and that builds upon a community and I can see how big this will become in the very near future. 

Flaskmob Nov 2015 in South LA USC

Pop culture is always evolving and interestingly enough, finds a way to intersect into your life. Since digital photography has been such a trendy form of art in the past 10 years, watching the visual media form collide with social media has brought a whole new level of street photography to life. 

The San Francisco based Flaskmob has gotten some major press this year especially in the Los Angeles area. Their last major collab with @conquer_la certainly got the attention of the LAPD when it got shutdown 15 mins after it's start time. Flaskmob is basically a group that organizes photo walks but with an edge. The walks are at night in very urban areas where a handful of male and female models dress up in eerie fairytale-ish costumes and use various forms of smoke bombs, flares, spinning steel wool and anything else that emits lovely low light energy. 

This time around, in order to control the crowd, Flaskmob announced the meeting location only by signing up for their newsletter. When we arrived on scene, there was a heavy police presence. The police were not dressed in riot gear so that was a good sign that things weren't gonna get shut down immediately. Figured it was good to have a police escort in that part of town.

As the crowd started to mob, the LAPD were very vocal about people staying on the sidewalk and not breaking any laws and blocking streets. The LAPD helicopter was making sure that people knew what they expected. Since we were waiting for some friends who were behind, we ended up walking at the very tail end of the mob so we missed some good crowd action in the beginning. 

Calvin was lucky enough to meet a really cool girl with a boa snake. The first time he had ever held a snake and now he wants one as a pet.

There was a ton of police presence not only cause of the Flaskmob event but also cause of the USC and UCLA football game. It has a collision of events that make it even more interesting. The LAPD had their sirens blaring in the underpass and since it was filled with smoke from the mob, it was like a scene out of a movie.... it was a cool experience.  

Below is the very famous Felix the Cat neon sign. It was cool to be able to show Calvin such a landmark across the street from USC.

As the mob gathered in front of the The Shrine, more smoke bombs went off and mini photoshoots ensued. Basically people would find a spot and instaphotoshoot would happen. 

A look at a portion of the mob below

@butch_locsin_from_la doing his thing with his smoke drum

We eventually ended up on the USC campus and were setting up for all sorts of shoots in the dorm area. USC students got curious and made the crowd even larger. 

A sea of photographers caught the attention of the local news media. KTTV is what I think I saw. 

With all of the commotion, there was a generous walk to the local fire station where people dropped toys for the less fortunate. 

A few hours in, my feet started to give out since my Chuck Taylor's weren't supporting my feet well. Ended up using Uber for the very first time to get dropped off back to the car. 

Thanks to the organizers for putting the event on. I had a chill time and it was great seeing what the photo community is capable of. I wish you guys many more successful events.

A cruise down to San Diego for Big Socal Euro Meet

Life is an adventure... go out there and meet new people, seek new lands and make fond memories that you can talk about on your death bed. It's so hard to break away from the norm and when you do get away, its hard to ease your mind of all the work you have to do when you get back... you  know what I'm talking about right? Makes it worse since I am Korean and Koreans are workaholics. I try not to be but it's in my blood. 

This past weekend was Labor Day... trying to take it easy on Labor Day seems unproductive so I had to find a way to relax but get some work done at the same time. Where does one begin to do that? 

Apparently there was a big car meet in San Diego on Sunday hosted by a Purist member. Open to Euro enthusiasts, I asked a few Euro people if they were going to check out the meet. Sure enough Darren (@creaminz_official) and a whole crew of Porsche and BMW boys were down to roll so I cleared my Sunday to check it out. 

Darren hangs out with some really cool dudes... and since all of these guys ball so hard, I had to get my #mbn (must be nice) hashtags ready to hand out. Here you go, and here you go.... thank you, must be nice sir... lol but as hard as they all ball, they are very gracious and humble dudes. Pleasure meeting the group, their significant others and their sons.... James and Rob both have one boy so Calvin felt right at home with it. 

There was definitely traffic heading down to SD from OC but a majority of the traffic came from people rubbernecking on the 5 freeway when the Marines at Camp Pendleton area were taking their hovercrafts from the dirt to the sea. It was super badass, sorry no photo, we were just mesmerized. 

The rollers below were shot by me while I was driving. Left the Canon 24-70mm 2.8 Mark II on 24mm, center focus and I shot over my shoulder. I have a pretty good idea of what the lens sees so I was able to get some shots this way. 

Stopped by our 2nd Shell Gas Station in SD where we refueled, snacked on packaged goods and waited for Rob from Crooks and Castles. 

Rob's Lamborghini Aventador in white and HRE's made quite the entrance with his wife sporting the murdered out Merc AMG G Wagon. 

I never attend car shows even though I love cars... not sure why... probably cause of the crowds, the commitment and the heat are at the top of the list. A lot of respect to those that run the circuit of shows... definitely a lot of work. My 964 ended up getting into the show cause the boys know everybody they need to know to get people in. There were two other air cooled Porsches out there, a 930 turbo and a Carrera RS in beautiful RS green. 

This Audi with the Volk ZE's was one of my favorites from the day.... even comes with a stack of firewood. How nice.

I didn't shoot too much on this trip for a few reasons: 1. I was driving 2. Phil (@handsomeandphilthy) jacked my Canon 24-70mm 2.8 Mark II cause he brought a broken lens to the show 3. I actually wanted to be a spectator and not a working photographer.... so you get what you get. lol

Ordered some Thai basil and chili chicken over rice and a Thai Ice Tea. I was let down by the use of breast meat... so dry... ugh. Our pick up sign was "Havoc".

We ended the night with some chicken wings at Wing N' Things and some spirited driving back up the 15N around 10pm. We took some photos... Kevin with the Polaroid and sticking his body out half way around 85mph was fun!

Photo Credit: Kevin McDonnell (@himynameskevin) shot on iPhone

Awesome day with some great people... I hope all of you had a great weekend!

All the images were shot on Canon 1dx and Canon 24-70mm 2.8 Mark II with a Marumi 82mm Circular Polarizer unless otherwise stated. All items can be found at IE Photo Rentals

Til the next,
Andrew Manley

Happy 4th Birthday Princess Addy

Nothing makes you feel older than watching a person go from birth to a child in no time. Where did all the time go... right? So our niece Addyson celebrated her 4th birthday yesterday with a nice small gathering of first cousins at Chuck E Cheese in Diamond Bar. 

I brought out the Canon 1dx and 24-70mm 2.8 Mark II.... which typically I don't do since indoor evenings would bring out L primes but I wanted to shoot at various focal lengths so I went with my gut. The 1dx held up well since it's low light is terrific and the image quality from the Mark II was sharp as it usually is. 

Shooting candids/documentary/journalistic style takes some effort because at the end of the day, it comes down to timing... you have to do everything right and then wait for the perfect moment. Typically I am directing at my shoots.... "Stand there, move this, park here, fix your hair...." but documentary style requires patience and being on the sidelines. 

Now I tried my best to do what I could to capture the moments yesterday but I felt like I struggled in capturing the essence. Could be all sorts of reason but I feel like I really need to change my mindset when I am shooting different styles... but it was also my niece's party so I wanted to enjoy it. Ah... the struggles.

Would love to hear who you guys love in documentary styled photography. What are some of your secrets in capturing special moments? Share below in the comments. Would love to hear you guys.

Happy birthday Addy! Love you babes

Til the next
Andrew Manley

Beginner's workshop to Calligraphy by Sarah Ku at Wanderwall Space

So over the weekend, Wanderwall Space had their first Introduction class to Calligraphy with Sarah Ku (@artbysarahku). The class filled up quickly by very eager students who wanted to learn this traditional craft of handwriting. 

My game plan was to come in and grab some stock images of the event to use for future classes. In hindsight, I should of spent more time grabbing some lifestyle of the students interacting with each other but there is always next week but I am happy with the shots I got. I kept the images tight to really hone in on the craft aspect.

For this shoot, I grabbed the Sony A7s, Canon 16-35mm 2.8 Mark II, Canon 135mm 2.0 and Canon 100mm 2.8 IS macro. I have been so involved with the mirrorless systems in the past week that when I picked up a Canon 5d Mark III, I felt the DSLR was oversized... (can't believe I just wrote that). I still have a lot of time I need to spend with the A7 system because when a customer returned the A7s from IE Photo Rentals, there was a lot of custom settings put in and I didn't have time to reset it for default use. The viewfinder was disabled so I had to basically shoot live view. You may not understand how big of a deal that is for me because I was such a hater of people shooting like that. I mean who shoots like this?! Luckily focus peaking was on point and it still allowed me to nail focus properly. 

The other issue I ran into was with the adapter. I was using the Metabones adapter which allows me to control my aperture but a customer came in and wanted to rent it so I had to let it go since that was the last one we had at the shop. I ended up using a generic one that had no aperture control so I had to shoot everything wide open. It ended up working out because I was going for an artistic look so the shallow depth of field ended up working out. 

I used the 16-35mm II for the wide shots since the space is very tight. The 135mm 2.0 was used to give those really super thin DoF shots. Worked out nicely for what it was intended for. The 100mm 2.8 IS macro lens was used to get in much tighter and get more details. 

Also, since my buddy Randy was around, we decided to pull him into the shoot. Why you ask? Well the class was filled with women only. Apparently only women are interested in this class but I know back in the day, men did a lot of calligraphy in Asia. All I know is that if you are a man and you like to talk to the ladies, this class is perfect because the woman to man ratio would be extremely ideal. So get on it boys!

Above are all of the freebies you get in the class. Gold foiled tote bag, starter calligraphy pen with two nibs, ink, Strathmore Calligraphy pad, clipboard and alphabet template. Get on it!

Thanks to all of the ladies that made it out today! ^Group photo courtesy of http://www.marthapimentel.photography

Wanderwall Space
http://www.wanderwallspace.com/
Instagram: @wanderwallspace

Til the next one 
​Andrew Manley