Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon York.
Jon, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I originally got into cosplay photography as a way to help my friends who were cosplayers. At the time, I had been going to cons for many years and became friends with lots of cosplayers over the years. What I had noticed was that many of my friends were not getting photos taken of themselves as there was only a small amount of photographers and a large amount of cosplayers back then.
My friends had put a lot of time into their cosplays, and all they wanted was a few photos so they could see how great they looked and to show the costumes off on social media.
But getting those photos was hard. So after seeing all that and sort of wanting to have keepsakes of the cons, as well as majoraly, help my friends out, I picked up a small point and shoot Sony camera and took photos here and there. After the first year of doing that, I fell in love with photography, and I just hit the ground running with it.
I first started going to cons back in 2001, but my first con that I went to as a cosplay photographer was in March of 2013. I bought my first DSLR that March and went to WonderCon down in Anaheim not really knowing anyone. I was a bit nervous, but I started going up to random cosplayers and asking if it was ok to take their photo.
No one turned me down, and once I got home, I created various social media accounts under the name “York In A Box,” so people could find me. After that, I just kept going to more and more local cons in the Southern California area and kept meeting more and more cosplayers who all seemed to like my work.
After a year of taking photos and going to cons, I was totally addicted to it and started going to out of state cons wanting to see what cosplayers from other areas were like.
Before I knew it, I was going to dozens of cons and events a year, had multiple social media accounts with tens of thousands of photographers and would even have cosplayers lining up wanting to shoot with me at cons. I honestly can’t believe it all, and even after nearly six years of doing all this, I still find it fun, and I love meeting new people and taking their photos!
Has it been a smooth road?
I would say like with anything in life, there were some bumps and struggles before I got to where I am now. Nothing too crazy of course, but as you rise in any community, you have to deal with things like jealousy, pettiness, and even people disliking you. It’s not pleasant of course, and there would be times where I would want to put the camera down and just stop taking photos all together.
Of course, that didn’t happen, but there were a few hiccups here and there that did occur. For me especially, burnout was a big issue. Going to so many cons and events a year can really put a lot of pressure and stress on someone. I was doing so much that I did start to crack and fray around the edges a bit I will have to admit. I was always worried about being forgotten by people in the cosplay community or people not liking my photo work.
So I kept pushing myself to edit photos late into the night or kept going to cons even when I was sick or just dead tired. I didn’t want to disappoint my social media followers or even my own friends, so I just kept going harder and harder till I hit a wall and realized I needed to slow down or else both my mental and physical health were going to suffer even worse then what it was.
I have learned to deal with things in a different way now since then though, and as of late I feel like things have finally smoothed out, and I really enjoy taking photos again and even going to cons as long as I don’t do too many. For me now, focusing more on doing planned photos shoots outside of cons and trying to push my abilities more is what I want to invest in more.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the York In A Box story. Tell us more about the business.
So my company is York In A Box, which is just basically me with a camera. I mostly specialize in cosplay photographer with a little bit of engagement and landscape photography on the side. Cosplay photography is where it all started for me though and is how I built my brand after many years of attending cons and events.
What I am known for regarding my photography is the way I take and edit my photos. I have a particular look I go for with all my photos when editing them as well as when I shoot them. My friends and many of the people who follow me on social media tell me that they don’t even need to look at a watermark to recognize one of my photos.
My style and look may have evolved over the years, but I guess you could say that I have still kept with a general theme of taking clean, sharp photos that I edit to have more of a colorful and saturated look. I love to play with color tones and saturation in my editing, and due to that, I have created a look that stands out I believe.
I would say I am proud of how far I have come over these many years of being a photographer. Back in 2013 if you would have told me that by 2019 I would have tens of thousands of followers, have my photos featured in various newspapers and magazines like Time and major websites like Buzzfeed and Kotaku, or that people from around the world would message me telling me how much they liked my photos, I would of just laughed and never said that was possible.
But after six years of doing this, I feel very proud of my accomplishments and where myself and my company have gone. There are a lot of other cosplay photographers out there in the community, and honestly, we all have to find ways to separate from each other.
For me, I was aimed to be the photographer who was professional, relaxed, helpful, and never turned anyone down if they asked for a photo. Also, I think my humor is a defining trait of mine as I love to make people laugh and when I do that during a photo shoot, it makes the photos all the more better.
I found humor was a great way to break the ice as well as to put people at ease when shooting with them. When people are relaxed and having a fun time, it really shows in photos. I would say along with that, my photo style is very different then most other people in my field and I think that helps make me stand out.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
As it stands, the cosplay community is more popular then it has ever been here in the United States. With that comes more and more photographers flooding in to take photos and make a name for themselves. I think that is great of course, but it does mean things will just continue to get more competitive and crazier as the years go on. However, I do see cosplaying hitting its plateau soon and then start to drop in the next couple of years.
What is popular now won’t always be popular, and I can see the community start to shrink in the next few years which means less photographers will be showing up. Even now we have been losing some in the community due to burnout or wanting to try new things. So even though there is a lot of new faces flooding in now, I think in the next few years we will start to see a dropoff.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yorkinabox/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YorkInABox/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/YorkInABox
Image Credit:
Vashfanatic, Reagan Kathryn, Karamia Darling and Allison Zeller, Rubenvoorhees, Daniel St. George, Kelvin Krueger, and TheShapeOfFear, Freddy, and Michael Myers, Ashleigh Weasley, Joanna Lynn, Autumn Skibinski, Geek Regeneration.
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