NWC32

It took roughly a week to get here, but really, I don’t figure that’s too bad, given my usual photowhoreish ways. Trust me, if I’d been employed (i can haz job now, plz? kthkxbye) it would have taken a lot longer than a week.

Still and all, just a few minutes ago, the last of my shots from Norwescon made it up to Flickr. There are three sets, one each for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and, of course, there are many more pictures from other attendees in the Norwescon Flickr group.

Thursday

Thursday was a nice, low-key start. I hadn’t actually figured on going at all on Thursday this year, but seeing as how I have a lot more free time than usual right now, I figured I might as well swing by. I dropped Prairie off at work in the morning so I could have the car, and headed over to the hotel about noon. Thursday definitely feels like the “slow day” of the ‘con, and I didn’t end up taking very many pictures. Mostly just wandered around, checked things out, poked my head into a panel or two, and that was it. Five o’clock rolled around and I bailed out to go get Prairie from work and head home.

Friday

Friday I arrived just in time for my one planned ‘event’ of the day, the Steampunk Fashion Show, hosted by the devious minds behind the upcoming Steamcon. Lots of great outfits! Unfortunately, I felt like I was struggling a bit with the photos, as the lighting in the ballroom was horrid. I still managed to at least get decent shots of nearly everyone who made it onstage, so it’s not a failure at all…I’m just my own harshest critic, as always.

After the fashion show it was back to wandering, grabbing a few shots of hall costumes, and sitting in on a couple of panels. I jokingly tweeted that the “What is Goth?” panel turned into “Hey, we’re not at the clubs and can hear each other without yelling!”…which wasn’t entirely untrue, as there was much amusement that nearly everyone in the room already knew each other to some degree from the scene. We did manage to turn it into more of a discussion about how people found the goth scene, how it’s changed over the years, and where it may be going as the ‘elder goths’ give way to a new generation.

Seven o’clock was my self-imposed curfew that night, so out the door I went to rest at home and ensure that I’d have as much energy as possible for the next day.

Saturday

This was the big day: rolling in around noon, rolling out whenever I was exhausted and had to disappear before I fell over. No panels for me today, Saturday is all about the costumes — and as always, such incredible costumes!

Featured above is one of my three favorites from this year. I’ve long blamed thanked Ridley Scott’s 1985 fantasy movie Legend, and specifically the scene where Darkness tempts Lilly with food, dance, and that incredible dress, for being one of my first proto-goth influences. I have absolutely no compunctions at admitting that as soon as I saw Jack and Lilly wandering around, I got a total con-crush on her!

My other two favorite outfits: Firefly/Senrenity’s Wash, impaled on the ship support beam and sporting a “Screw You, Whedon” sign; and the bounty hunter sporting Jar-Jar Binks’ head on a pike.

Since I’ve been running the @norwescon Twitter account, at the suggestion of @empsfm, I’d kinda-sorta-not-very-competently organized a joint ‘tweetup’ for @norwescon, @empsfm, and @seattlegeekly. Since I hadn’t even thought ahead enough to have some sort of sign announcing our presence, a few people couldn’t find us, and it ended up being kind of sparsely attended, but I still had a good time chatting with Shannon and Matt from Seattle Geekly, @ghouligan (Barry), and @jacinda. Sorry to anyone who missed us, I’ll do better at this whole “organizing” thing next year!

After the tweetup and another few hours of hall costume hunting, it came time to stake out my spot for the post-Masquerade photo area. There’s always a limited amount of space and a lot of people who want to take pictures, so I’ve found that it’s best to start hovering in the lobby area around 6pm-ish. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the t-shirt vendor started packing up and the official photography team started setting things up. My (not-so-)nefarious plan worked, and I was able to get a choice spot just left of the centerline behind the official photographers’ line of chairs.

And there I stood for the next three hours, as costume after costume paraded in front of us. So much great work on them all, from the hall costumes that were shanghai’d into posing to the Masquerade entrants posing for us after their time on stage. Of course, three hours is a long time to stand in one place and hold a camera up, so once the final Masquerade costume made it through, I stumbled away to sit and recover for a bit.

After some time to regain feeling in my arm, I started wandering, and spent some time running around with artvixn, helix90, and their friend Nell, who were on a quest to visit some of the hall parties. We made a swing through the Merchants of Deva party, then they all went off to find a rumored scotch tasting while I went down to the Saturday Night Hoedown, as I knew I had to drive home in a bit (oh, and I’m a total wuss drinker) and didn’t have much interest in the scotch.

The Hoedown kicked off (a little late, but I believe that’s par for the course), the floor filled pretty quickly, and I spent a good hour or so making laps around the outside of the dance floor with my camera. It wasn’t terribly long, though, before I really started to realize just how tired I was, and decided it was time to head home. Not long after midnight, then, I packed up, took one last look at the revelers, and bade another Norwescon goodnight.