[Sankarea: Undying Love cosplay] Fulfilling Last Year's Regret in the Endless Summer Flower Sea

When shooting this set for the first time last year, due to many objective factors and misjudgments, I couldn't edit a single original photo, which was quite frustrating. This time, shooting again in the Endless Summer hydrangea sea in Chongqing, I summarized quite a bit of practical experience, and the final results were very satisfying, so I'm taking this opportunity to share some tips from the shoot.

First, I solved the big problems with the costume and styling. The purple lines on the collar and cuffs of this white-purple sailor uniform are actually easy to lose layers under strong light. During the last shoot, I didn't pay attention to the lighting, which led to parts of the clothes being completely overexposed. This time, I specially brought a softbox and a reflector. Under the added benefit of the diffused light in the flower bushes, the white sailor uniform finally restored its original pure texture. The black long hair and blue four-petal flower hair accessories are the soul of the character. To achieve a natural effect, I spent a lot of thought on fixing the hair accessories; they had to be worn securely so they wouldn't tilt when walking, but also couldn't look too stiff, so I finally used invisible clips and hair spray to secure them.

The outdoor location was chosen in a field of Endless Summer hydrangeas in Chongqing. Entering June, the scenery of blooming flowers is very photogenic. However, although these types of blue hydrangeas are beautiful, if the color control of the camera is not good, they easily look gray or have strange color casts. So during the shoot, I specifically asked the photographer to use several angles. We used a drone for an overhead shot, letting the person shrink into the flower bushes to create a quiet sense of being swallowed by nature, just like in Figure 3. I really like the sense of oppression and wrapping brought by that perspective. We also used a large-aperture lens for a low-angle仰拍 (low-angle shot), using large blurred blue flowers as the foreground, focusing the subject of the lens on the interaction with the leaves.

As for the set of side shots holding a transparent umbrella, I personally think it's the aspect that best displays the character's charm in terms of styling. The purple pleated skirt paired with black long stockings had a great effect of elongating proportions against the backdrop of green leaves. Besides looking elegant, the pose of holding the umbrella also requires attention to forming an overlap with the layers of the flower bushes, making the arc of the umbrella edge exactly become a semi-circular frame for the picture.

For post-processing, this time I preferred to maintain a cold-toned blue-purple atmosphere. The blue of the hydrangeas and the purple of the skirt are the main color tones, while I didn't significantly increase the saturation of the green leaves, but instead slightly lowered the brightness to set off the main character's clothes and hair color. The contrast was kept between softness and transparency, retaining the original texture of the skin while weakening the sultry heat brought by the hot sun. Although I had prepared a lot, moving through the flower bushes to take photos was still a test of physical strength. We shot for about three hours, and my body was covered with marks wet by leaves and dew. However, after seeing the original photos and the preliminary fine-tuned results, I felt all the preparation was worth it. Shooting things like this really can only rely on summarizing experience through repeated trial and error. The smoothness of this time is also based on the painful lesson of zero output last year. I hope that every set in the future can be shot steadily and satisfactorily like this.