I attended Gen Con as Distant Era once again in 2026, where we made portraits for cosplayers (and one headshot), and we photographed the Dimension 20 cosplay event. And ran sound for the Glitter Guild. In future weeks, we’ll share the real photography from Gen Con 2026. For now, I offer a journal of the event, accompanied by mediocre phone selfies.
Tuesday
We got a late start waiting for some fancy light stands I Kickstarted in February (expressly for Gen Con) that were to be delivered the day we were supposed to leave. Waiting paid off, as we got the stands in the early evening and (spoilers) they were very handy throughout the convention. I featured them in some pictures below.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, I drew up loose lighting plans for each of the Gen Con portrait subject. I looked up each character to see how they’re represented in media, what their prominent colors are, what angles make sense to photograph them from, what the essential mood/vibe of the character is, and how I might creatively bring that out with the gear I brought while keeping the sessions moving forward.
Later I went with Paris Green, co-host of the Thursday night Glitter Guild show, to inspect the venue and speak with the AV person onsite. We discussed the show’s technical needs and learned how to connect the sound. (I was running sound for the show.)
Afterward, we ran into several people I know, including cosplayer Brownie Knight (my first subject the following day), followed by my old workmate Jeremy Crawford from my D&D writing years, followed by Bob Brinkman, a fellow performer from the 1993 street cast of the Ohio Renaissance Festival (when I was eighteen!). Jeremy works with Darrington Press now and Bob works for Goodman Games. I work for Distant Era. It was great to see them.
Thursday
The first official day of Gen Con began with a cosplay portrait session with Brownie Knight. Brownie is one of our favorite people to see at Gen Con. This year, she created three NPC characters that had quests to give out to Gen Con attendees. She dressed as a Red Wizard, as a half-elf rogue, and as a goblin bard. During the convention, she wore an exclamation mark on her head (indicating an NPC quest giver), and throughout the con, she gave people things to do, telling stories, sharing knowledge, making others smile… It was all about spreading joy from one person to another.
Having accomplished my first booking, I went to the exhibit hall, which was more packed than I had ever seen it on Thursday. It was difficult to move through the aisles.
At the Matagot booth I picked up Kanō, an abstract game with a four-page rulebook about creating Japanese hand-painted scrolls (emakimono). It’s beautiful, short, and fun.
At night, I ran sound for the Glitter Guild show. My friend Jenna was also helping with the show. I know Jenna from the time I co-founded a Chicago theatre company in 2001 with friends from college. Jenna was in it. All of that was another lifetime ago. Greg Inda photographed the show. We got to have some good meals and conversations at the start of Gen Con this year.
I returned to the hotel after midnight to get some sleep in advance of the four mini portrait sessions I had the next morning.
Friday
Friday was our second biggest cosplay photography day, and we rose early to set up. We started the day with a headshot session for game writer Judy Black, who is designing for the Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG.
After that, we photographed the amazing Indy, a veteran of our cosplay photography sessions. Indy started at age ten at our first Distant Era cosplay photography/posing workshop in 2022 and is doing killer work.
Then we saw Belle Westaby again, another longtime Gen Con collaborator, who brought back her Fearne cosplay from 2023. Our previous Fearne image became the standard for how I tend to light cosplay at Gen Con. Since we had made portraits of Fearne before, I asked Belle whether there was a different direction we wanted to take this time, and Belle sent sketches! (Check out Belle’s art here.) We used these as a guide to create our whole session.
At last, we saw Brownie again as a half-elf rogue. For this portrait, we started with harder, more shadowy lighting.
I spent a good portion of Friday afternoon and evening preparing for how to execute Saturday’s seven mini portrait sessions.
Saturday
I survived Gen Con Saturday. It was a big push that began with character portraits and went through the day with a lot of great people. It was a good time as usual, and the sessions were spaced far enough apart that I had a chance to talk to people.
After the sessions, I went to the convention center for a short time, and as soon as I’d met up with Liz, a tornado warning sounded on everyone’s phones, and the convention center urged everyone to calmly make their way to interior rooms.
I happened to be with Liz and with Karissa Kosman at the time. Karissa took charge in directing people toward the tornado shelter, and we went down to the basement beneath the convention center. Moments later, we were joined by Liz and one of our cosplay photography subjects, the aforementioned Indy. There we waited until another announcement came that the basement had begun to flood and was unsafe. The Indiana Convention Center staff ushered us up to offices within stolid internal walls where we waited until the tornado warning had passed.
Liz had planned to go to a Greater Than Games party downtown, but the bar where the party was to be held also flooded, and the party was canceled, so Liz held her own party at the hotel, ordered pizza, and shared Oban scotch. John Kidd and Deana Vazquez were there, who Traveller readers might recognize from Auxientia and Deana’s famous birthday shoots with Distant Era.
Sunday
After seven portrait sessions, a tornado warning, and flooding, we were ready for a calmer Sunday. But there was work to do, so we got up early and went to shoot the Dimension 20 cosplay event, which was a great time once again. Then we hauled our gear to another location to finish up our cosplay portraiture for the weekend.
After that, I finally managed to give Sarah Moore (also a game designer, along with her husband Jeff) her print of Persephone from the Gods and Heroes of the Aegean artwork we finished in February.
Whew
As The All Worlds Traveller is published, we’ll be preparing to leave Indianapolis and Gen Con 2026. It was a lot of work, with so many moving parts, but I ran into a lot of old friends and made a few new ones. I have a massive amount of photo culling and editing on my plate for August.
The constant hustle was challenging, but I’ve gotten more experienced at adapting to different situations in photography, so I’m able to improvise better. That was one of my takeaways from Gen Con this year. And because I love games, I was happy to have found such a quick, fun, beautiful game in Kanō, which Elizabeth and I played at night throughout the con.
