On my way to have a beer with a friend after work this Friday, I had the good fortune to wander unto Wondercon 25- a comic book/sci-fi convention deluxe complete with the requisite superhero and villain participants de jour. I've never been attracted photographically to such happenings per se, they just seem like enclosed environments conducive to the manufacture of snapshots of variously masked masses self consciously mugging for the camera.
But it was an altogether different experience to catch them milling about the outside world and interacting with the environment on their way to and fro. And it was quite the sight to see a good hundred or so of them in the complete, "official" uniforms of Star Wars Storm Troopers, complete with officer corps, and Darth Vader himself with his weird, self contained heavy breathing, personal sound system. I then realized how seriously these 30, 40, 50 year old men (and a couple of women) all took this, the "authenticity" and attention to detail of their uniforms and poses- they were the sci-fi space equivalents of Civil War reenactors! But there was nothing they could really... reenact. So they all posed together for a series of group photos, and probably went home to a galaxy suburb far, far away...
Nevetheless, it was a pretty congenial crowd; managed to take a few photos that day and the next, and suspect I got a couple of keepers out of it, certainly more than I had expected to have this weekend- will be posting them as they come.
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