At the end of September, I e-mailed Cephalofair Games a question about which products they would have available at Spiel Essen this year.
At the bottom of that e-mail, I included a one-liner about my photography:
Also, I am a portrait photographer, wondering if your team might want some dedicated photos from Essen?
As luck would have it, they did; Cephalofair’s marketing team reached back out to me a little over a week later, and we wound up planning some photo time.
It was my first time photographing…
Under convention center lights - several meters further from the subject than the dance event lighting I’m used to
At a booth-based convention - capturing the right subjects through a crowd of people that are moving unpredictably
Focusing on board games - people looking down at a table, glossy cards and boards, small objects with tight focus windows
… but they had reviewed my Instagram and liked my style, and I knew I could bring good shots to the table if I could solve the unknowns.
The complications from the lights and booth could be managed on site. It couldn’t be harder than capturing moving dancers in low-light ballrooms. My past experience didn’t cover the board games themselves, though - I had no idea what I was getting into. The only way to find a solution was to experiment.
At home, I spent some warm-up time photographing Gloomhaven - Cephalofair’s flagship game. I worked with flash photography, different angles, and a polarizer filter to figure out the best way to photograph the physical assets. Big discovery - the polarizer cut glare off the cards when I rotated it correctly, so I knew it was key.
Knowledge in hand, I packed my camera gear and headed to Spiel Essen. I spent about three hours photographing at Cephalofair’s booth, and wound up delivering just over 50 shots. I didn’t even need to adjust my editing philosophy - the same fundamentals that I use elsewhere applied to board games as well as to people.
Cephalofair couldn’t have been happier with the photos, and have been using them on their Instagram ever since.
Portraits
Portraits are my bread and butter, and were the primary reason Cephalofair wanted to work with me - they were missing photos of one of their game developers, Drew. Gloomhaven’s creator, Isaac, and Cephalofair’s CEO, Price, were also on site and in need of some new photos. My style is built around candid photos with good lighting, and these are three of my best from the set.
Some of my favorite moments were when Price had a little mini-hand pointer and was using it to explain things. He was getting pure joy out of it, so I had to include a couple of shots of it in the final delivered photo set.
It was an honor to have the opportunity to take photos that show the passion this team has for their products and fans.
Products
Cephalofair’s second priority was to have some new material for their upcoming products, Mercenaries Wanted and the Gloomhaven RPG, and their most recent release, the Pub Crawlers expansion for Gloomhaven: Buttons and Bugs. I was able to deliver shots that showcased each game, using the polarizer filter to minimize glare from the harsh overhead lighting.
The impact of the polarizer filter really shows on this photo of a card pack. Only the warped spots still show glare, because the filter only impacts one angle.
For my first product shoot, I was very happy with the results. Fiddling with a polarizer filter was a small price to pay for being able to take such clear shots, and more photos than I expected were keepers.
Boothscapes
The booth itself was also new to me, but I’ve done a lot of landscape and cityscape photography, so I thought about it similarly - layering from foreground to background, with the focus varying in depth based on desired detail. Sometimes I wanted the big picture, sometimes I wanted a tight area. I treated the large banner signs, structures, and furniture as land features, and tried to capture the people and products as if they were landmarks, trees, and animals.
Cephalofair wanted to ensure it was clear that the booth was at Spiel Essen and not a different convention. There are some windows in the hall that are recognized in the industry, so anything that captured them was a bonus.
The booth proved to be a challenging problem due to the number of moving parts, but treating it as a landscape made it solvable. I spent less time on it than I did on the people or products, but I still came away with several shots I was happy to deliver.
What I learned
This experience introduced me to two new subjects, and I walked away from it with a lot that I will carry forward to other opportunities.
People are people, whatever the context. My usual approach worked - make sure they are comfortable with the presence of a camera; stay out of their way as much as possible; vary the moments between interactions, activity, and stillness to ensure a broad range of final images
Physical objects can be complex from the standpoint of both staging and lighting, but a polarizer filter helps me compensate for the lighting. I found taking photos of people’s hands interacting with products adds dynamism
Boothscapes are like any other -scape, where finding the right focus and ensuring layering are the keys to success. Isolating detail is the same - I can take a photo of a stack of products as if it is an animal in the distance, just like I would in nature
Future opportunities
I loved working with Cephalofair, and I found the subject matter fascinating.
Board gaming is my favorite at-home hobby, and I want to get more involved with the industry - more time at conventions, both behind the camera and at the table. I’ll be sure to make it to Spiel Essen again, and I’ll also set aside time for other conventions that are big and have English-language games at them - a significant limitation when it comes to playing board games with friends in Berlin.
Conventions and fairs appeal to me in general. They are great for capturing people in interactive moments, usually with joy on their faces as they talk about their passions. My portraiture carries over directly, and my eye for other photography types applies to products and boothscapes with minimal learning curve.
If anyone is interested in my services, please DM @waxingphotonic on Instagram!
Hey all, I’m Michael Mathieu, a photographer who is also an avid dancer, traveler, and gamer. Welcome to my blog! Please subscribe here and follow me on IG @waxingphotonic.
Michael!
It was such a pleasure having you join us at Essen Spiel! Thank you for getting in touch and responding do our team when they reached out for photography. I'm super proud of all the shots you got and these are easily some of the best portraits we've received to-date! I hope we get to work with you again in the future, please stay in touch!
-Price Johnson
CEO, Cephalofair Games