Photos: My year with Starcraft

I suppose the beginning is the best place to start. I spent the first 5 years of my photography journey shooting live music. I always loved going to concerts, and when I picked up a camera for the first time, it all just made sense. One of the great things about photography is there are so many places you can take it. A year ago, I was lucky enough to combine photography with another passion of mine: esports. I'm still relatively new to this community, especially compared to most of the people here. My first big live event was the (Wiki)

NASL Season 2 Finals last December. I had been watching streams for a little while and considered attending MLG Anaheim 2011, but didn't make it. This isn't meant to be a detailed journal of my year, but to outline the events that I was lucky enough to attend, and I hope the photos speak for themselves.

I guess the first spark for me came with the SoCal Esports Barcraft for (Wiki)

MLG Providence last year in Irvine. Getting to Barcraft, and seeing a room full of people enjoying the same thing that I did changed everything. It wasn't that I didn't know other people enjoyed StarCraft, but seeing everyone there together in that setting made everything more real. I made a few contacts that weekend, and managed to spin that into a press pass for the NASL finals a few weeks later.

I didn't have much of a goal going into NASL. It was my first time attending a live event, and I didn't know what to expect, other than long hours and lots of StarCraft. I certainly got my fill of both, shooting all day long, editing into the early morning hours and waking up to do it all over again. While the event itself had it's ups and downs, I made the decision that weekend that I would go to every event I could in 2012. The first few things I made it to were a little smaller, Winter Games Fest at UCSD, the (Wiki)

CSL tournament at UCI and the barcraft for (Wiki)

MLG Winter Arena. Going into (Wiki)

MLG Winter Championship in Columbus, I felt ready and prepared.

Columbus was a lot of fun. I roomed with Silverfire, which would later become standard for most events. It's a lot easier to share a room with someone traveling with as much gear as you. MLG was a stark contrast to NASL in that there was always plenty to shoot, and not just one game at a time. I don't think I stopped moving the whole weekend. Seeing the MKP/DRG storyline play out in person was really great. I met lots of new people and had my first encounter with TL Mafia. I also didn't eat much that weekend because the area the convention center is in is horrible and nothing is open later than like 8pm.

Up next was (Wiki)

IPL 4 and

GSTL Season 1 Finals in Las Vegas. This was probably my favorite event of the year and the one I hold the most memories from. It was also the first event I was shooting for ESFI. The Cosmopolitan is a really nice hotel, expensive, but nice. My room being an elevator ride away from the tournament floor made everything really easy. Bubble Pop played on repeat all weekend. The room with the player stations was very well lit which was a change from the pool area at MLG. GSTL finals, while controversial, were amazing to shoot. My shot of MKP after winning is one of my favorites of the year. Have I mentioned Bubble Pop yet? Mvp didn't make it, but I still got to shoot Nestea and July. Of course, I had no idea at the time what awaited me at the next event.

(Wiki)

Flash.

Jaedong.

Bisu.

Fantasy.

MLG Spring Championship in Anaheim. Who would've thought, right? MLG brought together the first (Wiki)

WCS tournament, along with the Kespa show matches. While the Kespa players overshadowed the rest of the event, a lot still happened. Alicia had a great showing, I got to meet Cliiiiiide, (Wiki)

Suppy became a household name, and (Wiki)

DRG got his revenge against MKP. A week after MLG was the (Wiki)

GESL, which I helped out with and shot some photos. I had more time to spend with the players than I normally did. Ryung, Clide, and Alicia were hilarious together and kept me entertained all weekend. Getting to work an event with a bunch of my friends was a great experience. The biggest lesson of the weekend was never bet against GHOSTCLAW when he tells you a game will last over an hour and ten minutes. Just ask (Wiki)

Jorosar.

I'm going to lump together the next two events because they were both MLG, and they both involved BBQ. Lots and lots of BBQ. Raleigh was a fun event. We had not just MLG but also (Wiki)

WCS NA Finals.The highlight of the trip though became The Pit bbq place down the street that I ate at 3 times. Raleigh was fairly un-exciting compared to Anaheim before it, with a distinct lack of story lines. Dallas. I decided to drive, because why not? Originally the plan was to stop and see stuff along the way, but I would up catering something for a friend just before it and made the drive in a day and a half. Stopped in Austin the day before to check out Franklin BBQ, then drove to Dallas. I think the most anticipated match ups of the weekend, and my biggest priority for photos, involved Flash and Rain. After MLG was over, I picked up a hitchhiking (Wiki)

Thundertoss and we drove back to LA, stopping in Lockhart for more BBQ on the way back.

The last two events of the year were (Wiki)

IPL 5 and

NASL Season 4. The layout for IPL was a lot worse than the last one. The players were sitting either in darkness, or in front of a large light panel casting a purple light on them the whole time. The press room was on a different floor which made it a lot harder to get any work done during the day, and I was consistently late getting photos in. On the plus side, there were some players to get photos of like (Wiki)

Sea,

Bogus and the Chinese player (Wiki)

XiGua that I hadn't shot before. GSL Code S and the GSL World Championships were a huge bonus. A bunch of us went out to Korean BBQ one night so that Jorosar could pay back his debt to Liquipedia, and by a bunch of us I mean 35 people. I felt bad for the small staff working there, especially because right after we showed up, so did 10 of the Korean players, plus the whole GOMTV staff. NASL closed out the year for me. Having a tournament with 8 players is a blessing and a curse. How do you get a variety of shots with only 8 subjects. Luckily NASL had like 15 hosts and multiple filler segments. In the end HerO was the one taking the champagne shower which I was prepared for, but didn't quite get the shot I wanted.

Well, that wraps up my year. I've learned and grown a lot as a photographer. I'm certainly not producing images yet at the level I aspire to. I don't really know yet what the future holds for me in esports. I may not be in a position to make it to as many events in 2013, but I will certainly try. I would love to be able to make it to one of the Dreamhacks. I am also considering going to Korea in January or February. I feel there has been a huge lack in photos coming out of the scene there and want to change that. I would love to be able to spend a few days with each team and document a season of GSL or Proleague maybe, especially now with (Wiki)

EG-Liquid competing. I want to thank all my new friends and everyone who helped make this past year so amazing. I can't possibly list everyone but special thanks to Caleb from SoCal Esports, Katie from MLG, Barbie from NASL, Anne Celestino, Brent Ruiz and everyone at ESFI, Silverfire, GHOSTCLAW, itsjustatank, Leafeator, Scott Ball, Fujikura, Thundertoss, Primadog, Muffins, Matt, Neil, Peter, Tofucake, Storrzerg, Shindigs, Tempo, HotBid, Nazgul, everyone in TC, CSN Andrew, John and Lauren from (Wiki)

Razer,

HwangSin,

Golden,

Apocalypse, (Wiki)

Theognis,

Sheth,

Suppy,

Clide, and (Wiki)

Ryung. I also want to thank everyone who has taken the time to look at my photos this past year.