Dave Worden Cosplay Photographer

This is getting to know Dave Worden who is a remarkable Canadian photographer that I discovered on Instagram. He truly has one of the most amazing photography profiles I have ever seen.

The first thing I have to talk about is the floating shot with the two women and the roses. I absolutely admired that one. Tell me about the inspiration and what lead you to do that particular shoot.

Well thank you I’m so happy you like that one it’s one of my favourites. It was done a couple of years ago so I can’t remember the original inspiration, although many of my ideas and inspiration comes from the models that I work with and I believe this was the same. I was also inspired by a friend of mine on Instagram named @xssharon who used to do a lot of floating shots.

Tell me about where you are from and what encouraged you to become a photographer. 

I'm from Vancouver Canada. I’ve always been interested in photography even as a little kid but never got seriously into it until about 10 years ago when I bought a DSLR camera and started trying to learn the manual settings. My original love was taking nature/landscape photos (I should try to get out and do that more, very relaxing and cleansing for the mind). However it became harder and harder to find new interesting landscapes without having to drive very far and it was very weather dependent. So, I started doing night photography in the city because it didn’t really matter what the weather was like, and the city at night holds many interesting subjects. Taking pictures at night involves a lot of long exposure photography and this got me into trying out different forms and experimenting. I started hanging out with some other like-minded photographers and eventually started getting those people in my pictures more and more until the people became more the focus of the photo. This got me into portrait photography which is now my main focus and love.

 The model with the lampshade… that is a very unusual costume choice. I would like to know what was behind the thinking of a lampshade for the pic. I think it is a very beautiful post. 

 This is another example of an inspiration/idea that is from the people that I work with. A designer named @vancitytalent made the costume and the model in the photos (@k0smickitty) had the idea to use the costume for the pictures. Once people give me their idea or inspiration then it’s up to me to find the right scenes/settings and make the vision come to life.

For those who are photographers themselves, could you go into a little detail about your equipment and special effects.

I shoot with a Sony A7iii and typically use a wide angle lens for most of my photos (Sigma 14mm 1.8 or Sigma 24mm 1.4) this camera along with the lenses is a really good set up for low light photography. I bring along a lot of it equipment for special effects including LED lights, RGB lighting, a portable fog machine, smoke grenades, a light wand (For Long exposure light painting) and my fire stick along with fuel for the fire.

I'm curious about how you get so many amazing models. Do you advertise or get messages on your Instagram, etc…

I am very lucky to work with so many amazing models. Most of the models I work with contact me through Instagram and most of them will have some sort of idea that they present to me. I love working with other people and help bringing their vision to life.

I always feel like it is a good idea to talk about any struggles we may feel in this life to make others feel like they are not alone. I know that I struggle with trusting people and have an extremely small circle. Sometimes, that causes me to be very lonely and I don’t share that with many people. But, now I guess I am sharing it with a lot of people.  Do you have any struggles that you would like to share. We can go as deep as you want or as surface as you like.

I'm not the type that likes to share my personal life or struggles. I like to keep my Instagram life more about the art and not about me. I guess that would be a struggle of mine though, sharing my personal life or showing myself to the world. I struggle with putting myself out there like that.

Santa in the suit is epic!!! I love that. Who came up with that and how did the shoot go?

Well there’s a long story behind that actually. The guy in the suit is my brother-in-law and years ago we started a photo series called “Suitandtieguy “ about a guy who is tired of the working world and wants to just leave it all behind.

We started with a photo shoot of him walking down a long lonely road, paper spilling out of his briefcase, or laying on the road with his briefcase open and papers spilled around. Then we started taking pictures of him in all sorts of different situations, when where he looked like he was going to jump off of a bridge (The police actually came and shut the bridge down for five minutes because they thought it was real and got in a little bit of trouble).

And we always do pictures of him in a suit at Christmas, or Halloween with a real pumpkin on his head.

Have you ever had any photoshoots that just didn’t seem to go well or have anything happen that was funny or seemed a little crazy?

Well this would bring us back to question number eight and the incident on the bridge. It was very early in the morning on a Sunday and we went out on the bridge to take pictures of my brother-in-law in the suit looking like he was going to climb over the bridge. As we were taking pictures a car drove by very slowly… 10 minutes later my brother-in-law looked over the bridge and said “hey isn’t that a police boat?” Then we turned around and police cars were coming in both directions and blocked the traffic on the bridge. A police woman got out and told us not to move. When she asked us what we were doing I said “ oh we’re just taking pictures for Instagram“ she didn’t look impressed but they just gave us a warning and they reopened the bridge right away, lol.

Oh for that one I made a fire stick that I could put through the wheels of the bike and spin to make it look like the wheels were on fire.

I think Galaxy Girl is topping the charts for me. These photos just keep getting more and more amazing the more I scroll your page. Tell me about the model and the idea behind this.

What a good boy!!

Again this is another one inspired by someone that I work with. I work with a couple of really amazing body paint artists. Galaxy girl was done by the super talented @iriee.artisty. Honestly I can’t remember who came up with the actual idea I think it was a group effort.

Thank you so much Dave Worden. Please check out his Instagram, you will not be disappointed.