Its been a lovely month here in Cyprus, the weather is mainly good and still warm at night. This month was host to the excellent GeekFest Kyrenia, at the Lord's Palace Hotel. It's is the only event of its kind in Northern Cyprus and is very well attended by the public, and a very cool place to do some shopping too. Pick up action figures, original art, lightsabers, t-shirts, tattoos. Or why not watch the K-pop Dance show, or get snapped infront of the greenscreen? All for free. See the full album and links to all the cosplayers and GeekFest Kyrenia here
Many people come together to make the GeekFest happen, but the gentlmen below Ali and Hasan, are the creators. They have a team of volunteers every year. For me this year I did two airport runs as well as large portion of the photography, but there were other official photographers and videographer there too.
Simge has hosted the last two events, introducing panels, cosplayers, dance artists as well as being in Cosplay. She takes good photos too.
There are other key characters year after year. There is Chucky who I met at a roleplaying night, as well as some familiar faces.
Let's not forget our Dungeon Master
Beyond that for me there are a couple of personal relationships with returning artists and cosplayers. There is the wonderful Gece, I love her art and she is a great personality, she has been at the conventions three times selling her sailor / fantasy art. We usually make some time for photos. It was good to meet her boyfriend this year.
And of course there is Mila, or Cosplay Mila. Mila is a full time cosplayer with a workshop back in Istanbul. She has been to four geekfests before and she is quite possibly the most energetic cosplayer I have ever met. This year i found out she has a fondness for sea shanties! Here are a few photos and of her from the convention, some in front of her shop. She cosplayed HBO Harley and Suicide Squad Harley. That is the lovely Saffet in the last picture minding Mila's shop. Great guy, going through some health stuff at the moment, best of luck to you my friend.
Then there are always new connections made. These next two cosplayers, I met at the airport for the first time, but had a car journey with them so got chatting, Inevitably you take more pictures of people you are friendly with. With many cosplayers in the same place a t the same time, its hard to connect with everyone, especially as there are other photographers around. I mean there were retuning cosplayers I met before that I never made a strong connection with, so hopefully you are seeing the convention from my perspective. So meet @yuele_me and @loreleichan_
I did a shoot with Sevir Cosplay a while back, it was nice to see her boyfriend cosplaying too.
So every year, on the friday before the convention, they take all the cosplayers out for the morning and early afternoon for photos and videos. It is a crazy day. This year I did 20 shoots in 2 hours. Here with some of the results. All taken at Bellapias Abbey. For cosplayer credit look at the main album here
Here with a few photos of behind the scenes on the shoot day
During the convention there was a K-Pop show and then dance off.
I caught up with those in black the following day and did some photos in the hotel.
Beyond that here are some photos of both days at the convention.
Finally there are the gold portraits, as I like to think of them. The hotel has a kin of gold theme in genral.
There are many more photos and the full credits here
Thanks for reading and see you next year.