[White Album 2] School Uniform Style Recreation in the Snow, An Iconic Scene Turns into a Comedy Setup

Spontaneously setting up a recreation of iconic 2D scenes with a friend, it took just one afternoon to casually snap these few photos, and looking back at them really cracks me up.

The shooting setup this time required two characters wearing the same school uniform style but with different color palettes: one with orange twin-tails paired with a pink long scarf, and the other with pure straight black hair paired with a white long scarf. For the clothing, we picked a navy blue wide-lapel blazer coat, paired with a blue-and-black plaid pleated short skirt underneath, and then put on black over-the-knee socks for an over-the-knee socks outfit. The overall look is very close to the winter school uniform cosplay feel of the original work. To match the color palette of the original illustration, we specially chose a cashmere-textured scarf with tassels for the texture, so that it creates a very natural dynamic rise and fall when fluttering in the wind.

We planned to shoot two groups of different atmospheres. The first group was to recreate the interaction in the snow. The shooting location was chosen against an outdoor background with accumulated snow; because the ground wasn't open enough, we slightly utilized the on-site architectural structures and snowbanks to fill the frame. For individual standing poses and movements, we tried our best to close in on the original work, especially for the orange twin-tails set, where the leg lines in the full-body shot combined with the short skirt and long socks proportions offered great visual tension. The other character crossed both arms and slightly turned sideways, with a gaze carrying that cool, detached look from the original work. At the moment of the snapshot, the wind happened to blow the long hair and scarf, giving the frame a bit of a storytelling feel.

When it comes to the most difficult and dramatic part to shoot, it has to be those few "three's a crowd, someone must be the third wheel" compositions. Originally, the iconic scene features the foreground two having a heartwarming interaction, with one person left out in the background. In our actual shoot, since there were only three of us, this loneliness in the background turned into an authentic comedic effect instead. During the shoot, we used a DSLR's large aperture combined with a telephoto lens to let the bodies and faces of the two people in the foreground blur out as much as possible, completely locking the focus onto the character wearing the pink scarf in the background.

When shooting this kind of formulaic photo, the hardest things to manage are the positioning and the gaze. To make that "abandoned" look of resentment more natural, the cosplayer in the background had to hold back from laughing out loud, while the actions of the two hugging in the foreground needed to be compact to prevent the subjects from blocking the central region of the background due to being excessively far forward. The final photo results turned out quite fitting, completely recreating that awkward iconic scene from the original image.

Actually, this kind of shoot doesn't care much about photography techniques; it's mostly about having fun with friends. Although we froze quite a bit in the snow wearing wigs, everyone frequently teased each other during the shooting process, making the live atmosphere exceptionally relaxed. The resulting photos included beautiful ones, as well as comedy pieces with sudden genre shifts. This process of being weird together and seriously replicating scenes together with friends is precious in itself. A set of photos with complete costumes, makeup, and props can carry a happy memory, and I think that's the most interesting part of cosplay photography.