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Higher resolution photos (5 Megapixel size) are available upon request or may be found on my Flickr account. I've uploaded most of my costumed attendees photos there, finally.
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Panel Photos Firefly/Serenity |
Panels - Day 1: Anthony Daniels, Ellen Muth, Ghost Hunters, Happy Days, Kevin Sorbo, Lee Meriwether & Yvonne Craig, Space Ghost, Star Trek - Battlestar Galactica, George Takei
Panels - Day 2:
Panels - Day 3:
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Dragon*Con is a 4-day sci-fi/fantasy/comic/gaming/video convention held in Atlanta, GA. This year it was held on the Labor Day weekend (Sept. 1-Sept. 4) at the Hyatt/Marriott/Hilton hotels, all of which are located downtown and right next to each other. The Hilton got into the mix by hosting the Walk of Fame this year, and I beat the rush by picking up my badge on Thursday afternoon before the convention officially started at the Hyatt. I heard the wait was still over 45 minutes to 2 hours if you showed up on Friday or Saturday to get your badge.
The Dealers Room and the comic-related artists were located at the Marriott Hotel once again. Unfortunately the Walk of Fame was over in the Hilton, and it was far away enough so that it made it tough to swing by from the Hyatt between panels, so I mainly stayed at the Hyatt for the first 2 days, but managed one walk-by each day to the Hilton, but it wasn't all that convenient for attendees. At least the air conditioning was good in the Hilton.
The bigger panels for the guests are usually held in the Hyatt's ballroom, all underneath street level, same level as last year. Babylon 5 guests were finally in attendance, and there was a nice turn-out for Stargate, as well as other off-beat shows like Mythbusters and Ghost Hunters It's always nice to see guests from favored shows of yesteryear. The Harry Potter track suffered the big cancellations from their guests (Katie Leung, Matthew Lewis and Warwick Davis). The other guest cancellation that was disappointing was Adam Baldwin's last minute absence this year, but Alan Tudyk and Summer Glau were still greeted by another strong turnout by Browncoats who still helmed very long waiting lines which continued to be funneled outside the Hyatt. Each of their 3 panels were well attended, and the Browncoats' spirit was alive and well, many of them taking the initiative to plan and host their own costume contest, and perserverance paid off as they were rewarded with a room (albeit too small for all the Browncoats in attendance) for yet another Shindig on Saturday night, as well as a wake for Wash and Book earlier Saturday evening in the Con Suite.
Friday night featured the professional costumers as what could be considered a Masters version of the Masquerade, and the entries were very good and impressive. The Hyatt's Centennial II-III would serve as home for most of the main events for each evening of Dragon*Con.
Saturday night featured the 9th annual Dawn Look-alike contest, and the contestants did a nice job with their make-up and costumes, as well as their own interpretation of Dawn.
The Masquerade wasn't up to the usual level of quality in terms of contestants this year. I ended up watching it from the overflow room in the Regency ballroom, and was bored or just disinterested by what transpired on stage, so it was a forgetful viewing experience for me this year. My friend Brian supplies the Masquerade rollcall photos this year because I just didn't care to take the photos for this year's edition of the event, and concentrated on taking photos of the voluminous number of costumed attendees all over the hotels.
For my cameras, I used a Canon A610 digital camera mainly for the costumed attendees photos because it is lighter and focuses faster in a quick pinch as shooting condition are not ideal, and you just have to go into guerilla mode to snap shots of the costumees. This is an upgrade from my older Canon A70 camera from years past. I used 2GB SD cards and actually filled one up on Sunday shooting in 5 Megapixel mode.
I also used a Canon S2 IS, which has a 12X optical zoom (4x digital zoom) and Image Stabilization which helped out in taking photos of the guests at their respective panels during the weekend, and at the Dawn contest (a no-flash affair). I think I went through about 6-7 sets of four AA NiMH rechargeable batteries on my busiest day, Saturday, but I did carry 10 sets just in case, most ranging from 2300 MaH or 2600 MaH in capacity.
I managed to take over 4400 photos in 3 days at Dragon Con between the 2 cameras I brought with me. I did my best to keep my flash photography to a minimum in order to not irritate guests as much as possible. This did make for some darker shots of the guests in the Walk of Fame area, but I tried to brighten them up without going overboard. The idea of having unlimited film (more or less) at a convention is truly frightening, and this webpage is a direct realization of that concept.
There are portions of this webpage that incorporate photos from my friend Brian Bailie, mainly in the Costumed Attendee pages. Thanks, Brian! Any photo that has a "BB" somewhere in the file name was taken by Brian.
Note: Like last year, I'm going to incorporate thumbnails, and there are some pages with 200+ thumbnails, so please be patient and let the pages load properly.
I know this isn't the prettiest website out there, but I hope to make it up in content. I think there are just over 2,700 photos on this group of Dragon Con 2006 webpages! Enjoy!
Your fearless photographer.
Feel free to email me.
If you'd like me to identify you in any of my photos, I'll try to accomodate your request.
