Review: Rain shooting in Wuppertal

This weekend, I had my very first rain set shooting in my life.

I really love Japanese Cosplay studios and would love to take pictures in such a special location more often than once a year (when I am in Japan).

Because I don’t mind traveling for a good photoshoot I decided to travel to my photographers place (Meermiau), who lives 4 hours apart from me.

(Normally he´s the one travelling, but this time it was my turn ^_-).
Uwe Lammer offers 2 different studios. Each studio has several different but unique settings.

We decided to book studio 1 which included:



A Bar setting

But because Meermiau just bought two new flashes (now he has 5 including 2 umbrellas and colorfoils), we decided to go with our own equipment.

Unlike to Japanese studios you have a lot of place.
It is less cramped and you have enough room for your light setting. It is also a one costumer only studio. You don’t have to share your space and can take pictures without getting disturbed by other costumers.

The rain set:

We decided to book the rain set for an additional fee.
The rain set is approximally about 3 x 6 meter and features 3-4 different types of rain “shape”.

During the rain shoot, the owner Uwe will assist you and control the rain and fog machine (if you also want to use the fog machine). He can give you a lot of good advices and is a really nice guy.
You just tell him which water you need and if its too cold or too warm.

It was really helpful to have him, because we made pictures without an assistance and it was really comfortable to have someone around who controlled the water.

In this studio it is prohibit to step on the set ground with shoes without special mats.
It would be very slippery and shoes can damage the ground surface easily.
But the mats are quite big so it wasn’t a major problem.

After only a few shots, I had a sea in my shoes and I was drowned in water.
If you go there, bring enough towels, changing cloths and shoes.

If you have parts or wig stylings which are not fit to get wet, don’t use them.
Its not like a slight rain, its like jumping into the sea and going diving for a while…
Also be careful and use water proof makeup, so it wont smudge during the shoot.
If you want to avoid looking shiny during the shoot, try to use a make up which has a good matt effect.

Uwe also told us, that the shoot is mostly over if you get water into your eyes. Because it would burn. It seems to be a bigger problem if you wear contacts.
I don’t have this problem, but my Cosplaypartners told me that’s a well known problem.

We shooted about 1 hr per costume. Afterwards I got dry and changed.
I think this was a good timeframe. Because after 1 hour, you are not only reeeaaally wet but also really cold.
Warming up is quite important.

I also want to note, that it can be extremely exhausting.
I am pretty used to jump, run, holding difficult poses. But the water shooting was kind of level up. You have to be careful about the shape of your wig and if you want to do more poses than just standing or sitting around it takes more time than usual to get the perfect shot.

Next to your face and body it is important how you move. Because every movement causes a different shape of water.
It is also more slippery than usual and it gets cold very fast.

I can normally shoot about 15 hours a day with a break between every Cosplay for changing and a 1 hr food break.
I guess with a rain set, 8 hours are my limit.

An advice to the photographers:

Spitting around too much water is not allowed, because there are electronic devices, flashes and similar things around the rain set. But water still gets out of the designated wet area.
We used Meermiaus equipment and plastic bags to protect them.
Be prepared that you equipment might get wet.