Hadouken photo at the Retro Games Convention

The Hadouken photo craze has reached Gothenburg. I had talked to the organizers of The Retro Game Convention in Gothenburg about having a Hadouken photo event, and they were game.

Hadoken is fun, and just about the easiest trick photo shot you can do. The idea is to simulate fights from Japanese manga comics, like Streetfighter, where characters fight using, among other things, ki based energy attacks.

What you need is:

• People in front of the camera with a great sense of humor, the courage to be in front of the camera, and the ability to jump.
• A camera. Any camera will do. You can do Hadouken with a camera phone.
• A photographer.

Want to make it extra fun? Ask some cosplayers to be in front of the camera. The costumes add a lot, but most important, cosplayers will have as much fun in front of the camera as the photographer has behind it. Cosplayers are creative, and will come up with ideas on the spot.

• Shoot at low speed. The pictures here were taken at 1/80 s. The people who jump will be a bit blurred, which adds a sense of motion to the photos.
• Shoot from a low angle. Jumps will look higher.
• If you have a DSLR, set it too shooting high speed burst. That way, you can press the button a little bit before everyone jumps, and shoot a burst covering the whole jump. This increases your chances of getting a good picture.
• To get everyone to jump at the same time, it is best if the photographer calls out when to do it. I counted backwards from 3 to 1 and NOW!
• If there are many of you, see to it that everyone is participating as much of the time as possible. Most of the shots you see here are group shots, and that is because everyone can have fun at the same time.
• The goal is to have fun, not to get great shots. If you are working with models, or a group of photography crazed friends, by all means, go for great shots. However, if you are shooting a group of people you have just met and talked into doing crazy things in front of a camera, the most important thing is that they have fun.

Enough with the tutorial. Let's just look at some fun photos:

I have an album with more Hadouken pictures at Picasa.

Robert Johannesson joined in with a camera. His pictures are at this Picasa web album.