Cosplay: Transformation and Identity Cosplay – short for Costume Play – is a subculture where participants recreate themselves as fictional characters from Japanese manga, anime and other media. Most cosplayers are young – early teens to early twenties and cosplay is a living dramatization of their search for identity.
For the players, it isn’t as much the fantasy of becoming someone new as exploring and exposing facets of themselves that most of us might feel safer keeping hidden. A big part of cosplay is an exploration of sexual identity and eroticism. Androgyny, cross-dressing, and fetishism are part and parcel of the experience.
I made these photographs to show the people behind the costumes: their pride, their vulnerability, their beauty, and their bravery.
these photographs reveal never-before-seen landscapes by distorting and abstracting the world we see every day. These were all made with a 4x5 inch large format camera and some darkroom magic.
These images were created with Diana and Holga plastic toy cameras.
Sometimes less is more.
This work is still in the experimental phase... it's probably trash, but if you see a series in here let me know!
