The Cursed Child

 

Those of you who know my wife and kids, know they are big fans of Harry Potter and J.K.Rowling. I can remember many years back actually planning a Florida Vacation around gong to see “The Order of the Phoenix“. They even went into mourning upon the news of Alan Rickman’s death earlier this year. Throughout the years, they have put on the robes and costumes and participated in many Harry Potter movie and book related events. I knew the latest event would be no different. The latest Harry Potter book was about to be released. Books-a-Million and many other books stores through the country were having events to celebrate this new book. This time my wife asked me to document the event as she was going to be one of the attractions.

We are always in Books-a-Million. The Books-a-Million employees know my family well, especially my wife and older son. They are truly great people. They are really good with my oldest son who is autistic. He loves hanging out at Books-a-Million reading and talking the the employees. Well, my wife volunteered to be her own version of the Harry Potter character, Sybill Trelawney. Trelawney has the gift of fortune telling, so my wife brought out the crystal ball and made several paper fortune tellers. She also brought a few other items out to decorate her table. The first series of images are some Harry Potter memorabilia and Amy Trelawney’s table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is Miss Amy Trelawney with her crystal ball.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It appears there was a lot of good fortune being passed around judging from the reactions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are one of my followers, you know I always talk about meeting new people on my photography ventures. I met several new people during this event, but the most interesting were the people in the following photograph.

 

 

 

 

From left to right, you have: Winter Isis, Lace, Marina, Vapiai, Hallow Eve and of course Amy Trelawney. Vapiai is a special effects artist while his wife Lace is a model and photographer. Marina, a close friend of the family, is also a model. Hallow and Isis are their two young daughters. It was fun talking to this family. Lace talked about how unfortunate that Middle-eastern terrorist have put a negative spin on Isis’s name. She told my son and I that the dress she was wearing was actually her wedding dress. She mentioned that her favorite color or I should say non-color, is black. My son liked this, because he is fond of black. Each one of them sat down to have their fortune told. Below are a few more photos of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These guys hung out with my wife for a while before leaving. Of all the costumes I saw during this event, I would say Lace’s costume was the best. The makeup and wardrobe were fantastic. The fact that she stayed in character the whole time she was there added to her mystique. The next series of images are a few more of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below are a couple of pictures of the Books-a-Million staff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally here are two portraits of my boys. The first shot of my oldest son is one of my favorites. In the second shot, I did not tell my youngest what to do. He naturally went to his Sirius Black pose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I end this post, I will talk about the technical aspects of this venture. All shots were shot with my Olympus E520 DSLR and my Sigma 30mm f1.4. I made these shots during the day and night. Since we were close to a window, I had to deal with fluorescent lighting and daylight combined. To handle this, I conducted custom white balance readings periodically during the day. At night, it was easier as the main light was the fluorescent bulbs. Most shots with exception of a couple were shot at f1.4 and ISO 400. I did not want to go over ISO 400 if possible. Shooting wide open helped me keep a decent shutter speed to freeze action. However, on a few shots, I should have increase the depth a little because some of the shots appear soft. This goes back to what I was saying in my last post about upgrading to a camera with decent image quality through ISO 6400. With such a tool, I could have increase my aperture for more depth of field while retaining shutter speed and image quality. I will have to ask Amy Trelawney if she sees an Olympus OMD EM5 Mark II in my future. If not that one, maybe one of the earlier versions. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the pictures. We had a great time. My wife did this for 6 hours straight. At the end of the night, she was glad to go home. Observing my wife go into character and socializing with friends and strangers reminded me of how lucky my boys and I really are. There something genuine and selfless about the way she interacted with people. Being genuine and selfless is a commodity in this narcissistic world of daily Facebook selfies. I guess I am just lucky! Thanks for reading! Check out the lightbox below for more images.

 

 

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