Archive for April, 2009

Punk/Goth-Style Photo shoot With Jan

April 30, 2009

Jan (Hikaru-Jan) is one of my favorite models to work with. I’ve photographed her at a number of events and did a private cosplay photoshoot with her at WonderCon2009. This time around, we decided to do something different: punk/goth-style portraits. For this type of photography, the backdrop would be important to fully convey the scene, so I chose no other than Battery Mendell in the Marin Headlands for it’s great graffiti and stone walls.

Clothing worn was all by SexPot Revenge.

Here are some samples from our photo shoot:





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2009 Cherry Blossom Festival Pictures Now Available

April 22, 2009

Having attending the previous two years (2007 and 2008), this year’s Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival was definitely not one for us to miss. If you want to skip right to the pictures, feel free to by clicking here. This year’s Grand Marshal was no other than Star Trek actor, George Takei. This year’s Cherry Blossom Queen was Eri Tagaya.

Before attending the actual festivities, we at Bui Photography usually attend the cosplay juding contest in front of San Francisco City Hall in the morning. Limited to only 100 participants, the cosplayers who have registered with Japan Video & Media line up to be judged on the following rubics: impression (10 points), craftsmanship (10 points), and details (10 points). Afterwards, everyone makes their way to Japantown and get ready for the floats.

This year was quite hot. In the morning, the temperature was already at around mid-70’s and by afternoon, it was well into the 80’s. I feel sorry for some of the cosplayers who wear full body costumes. All in all, it was quite fun.

See everyone at FAnime!

Samples, see the rest here:




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2009 San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival Grand Parade & Cosplay Contest This Sunday

April 16, 2009

A reminder for those who are interested, the 2009 Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival’s (http://nccbf.org) final day is THIS Sunday in Japantown. What’s special about the last day of the Cherry Blossom Festival, besides the Grand Parade with this year’s special Grand Marshal George Takei (Star Trek’s Sulu) is the Cosplay Contest sponsored by Japan Media & Video. The cosplay judging event starts at 10:00 AM in front of San Francisco City Hall. There they will be judged and photographed before making way to Japantown to be on the float for the Grand Parade. It’s definitely worthwhile to make it out there to see the amazing costumes and effort by the cosplayers. After the Grand Parade, there is a stage setup in the Japantown center where the cosplayer winners will take stage.

Check out my last year’s pictures of the events (link). See you guys there!

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Please Excuse The Temporary Mess

April 16, 2009

We are going through a site redesign at the moment and there are some major changes that has happened. The Bui Photography blog is now at http://blog.buiphotography.com (no longer at http://buiphotography.com/blog). Some parts of the website are not visually functioning fully yet, but you should be able to browse all the galleries and order prints normally.

Thank you.

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Checkout My Interview On Cosplay At SFGate

April 8, 2009

Jeff Yang, Asian Pop Columnist for SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed me for his latest piece titled “The Cosplay’s the Thing”, here’s the snippet of my interview:

“This is a perfect way to indulge yourself, given everything that’s going on,” says Richard Bui, a photographer who’s documenting the Bay Area’s rapidly growing cosplay scene. “Making these costumes is about effort, not money. And when you wear them, you forget about the economy. It’s funny, but in some ways the easiest way to just be yourself is to become someone else.”

One of my favorite models, Bekkalou, also appears in the article. I recently had a blast photographing her as Saber from the anime Fate/stay night [link to pictures] and will be working with her again at FAnime 2009.

Be sure to read the entire article at SFGate.com [link to article] and/or in tomorrow’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.

And if you have time, checkout some pics I’ve taken at various cosplay events:

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Agnes, Dominic, and Damien Portrait Session

April 5, 2009

I recently photographed Agnes, her husband Dominic, and their son Damien again, this time instead of being Damien’s 1st Birthday Party, just family portraits. We spent a couple of hours at San Mateo’s Central Park and Japanese Tea Garden and got some nice casual family pictures.

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