I know I’ve done similar before… and this won’t be just a rehashing of my original “con report.” A couple of weeks ago when I was looking at old Hermione photos for instagram, I was flipping through them and thinking, “oh yeah, that was the night before I left for the midnight show, I refused to wear makeup or a skirt, so I wore jeans and did nothing with my hair, just had mom come outside with the digital camera and take a quick picture…” I thought it would be fun to do the same kind of thought process with my old Dcon photos.
Dragoncon 2002 we shot 95% on film. We did have a little digital camera back then – it actually belonged to dad’s work, and could only take about 15 photos at 600×800. So we would save my costume photos for that, and shot everything else on film. Lots.. and lots… of film. It was somewhere around 20 rolls of film. I had to get them developed in chunks. I remember getting a bunch of them developed and then taking them to The Melting Pot with me for my birthday dinner to show off to everybody.
And it was a lot of scanning, too. And at the time, I wasn’t all that fussed about how big they were, so I scanned them all in as quick as possible, and uploaded them pretty small. I mean, this is as big as most of them get:
Over the years I’ve gone back and re-scanned some of them a little bigger, but some of them – mostly the ones of me! – are missing. Most of the general con photos got put in actual, physical photo album, but at one point I took all my costume photos and put them in a different album, and then took them out to maybe scrapbook… and thus a lot of my older photos have gotten lost or misplaced. Boo 🙁
ANYWAY this is supposed to be about dragoncon, not photography and photo storage.
We flew in Friday morning. Ash spent the night at my house and we had to be up at the butt crack of dawn to get to the airport. We got to the Atlanta airport utterly confused because there was no hotel shuttle or anything, but after calling the hotel we were told we could take MARTA. Had no idea that even existed! So we did that and got off at the right stop but then got totally turned around and ended up walking outside up a steep sidewalk in the heat dragging our suitcases while a homeless man followed us asking if he could help us.
We finally got into the hotel and… ok picture Friday the way it is today. Packed to the gills. People everywhere. 2002 the Atrium level hadn’t been remodeled yet, so there was little to no congregating in that space – it was filled with chairs and couches and most people just sat up there to get away from the busier marquis level downstairs.
So when we arrived that Friday mid-day, it was relatively empty. In fact, I didn’t see anyone even in costume, so I was very hesitant to get into costume myself. We wandered a bit, poked around, finally started seeing con attendees so I ran back upstairs to put on my Shadowcat costume.
We spent a lot of time over the weekend just finding places to sit and perch and people watch. We LOVED the Hyatt lower levels. I still have a fascination with them to this day, even though hardly anything goes on down there anymore. That makes me sad. My fav thing to do used to be to just wander down at 1 AM and see what weird stuff we could find.
Buffy was still on the air. Wow.
I chickened out of the parade. I signed up for it and then didn’t go. We just wandered out the front of the Marriott and stood on the corner (right in front of where the poop lion is now) and just stood there and took photos. People in the parade kept yelling at me to jump in.
Look at how empty the sidewalks are. Insane.
I did meet a Skeletor while in She-Ra though, that was cool. I remember just hanging out on the Lobby Level in this after the parade, a guy came up and took my photo and complimented my costume, asked if I’d made it up myself and I said no, I’m She-Ra, from the 80s cartoon and he had no clue what I was talking about.
I’ve talked about the Ocha experience enough to not want to repeat it. I don’t know how the “ash jumps/falls down the marriott” tradition came about but this was the first one. Maybe she was tired of having to cut my fingers apart.
“So what are you supposed to be, like, a girl version of Harry Potter?”
Ash’s amazing convertible pants… turns into shorts with a simple unzip! Oh early 2000s you so crazy.
Evil Willow and my “alt” Buffy. I’d done the red pants/straight wig version most of the con, switched it up for Saturday night and we actually did quite a few Buffy panels that year… I even won a signed photo of Robin Sachs likely because I was the only person in panel in costume (holding my stake up in the air to get attention)
Of course we went to the MST3K panel Monday and then followed Mike and Kevin back over to the walk of fame for autographs (along with half the audience). To get ready for the photo I couldn’t remember if there was film in the camera or something, I don’t remember why, but for some reason I had to open the back of the camera to check and exposed what we already had back there. Don’t know what we lost in that moment, but I put a new roll in just to make sure we got our shot with them. Dad got one, too!
I have not one but two photos of dad exactly like this from that weekend. I just didn’t scan one of them LOL
Most of the photos from that weekend were taken by dad. I gave him the camera and said “take photos of everything” and he did.
Snack time… before the AL renovation, we’d go to the little store up there, get a late night snack, and crash on the couches for a while. Heck I think that was our dinner sunday in 2003. we forgot to eat before the masquerade.
There she goes again
The only “random crowd” shot I have from that year. Looking down on the ML level. I miss the dealer’s rooms and fan tables being in the Marriott.
I still have this wighead with the purple bangs drawn on. I saw it not too long ago.
On stage at the masquerade. We were in line to go on and I was nervous, as I always am before going on stage. And when I get nervous before going on stage, I have to pee, no matter that I just went 10 minutes before. So I’m standing there with Ash nervously dancing in place and whatnot, and there was a guy dressed as Spock in front of us. He asked if we were nervous and I said YES! He said “Don’t be!” Ah Mr Spock, if only it were that easy!
Dad managed one photo of us on stage.
We were behind this faun for a while and got to see how his legs were built. It was super cool.
I actually won a thing in the Star Wars costume contest. So did Ash! I still have the cup our prizes came in somewhere in my closet at my parent’s house.
Ran into these two while I was wearing Shadowcat. The Bucky and I had the exact same sparkley blue boots!
I look back at a lot of these old photos and wonder if there’s someone I know now and just don’t recognize.
Ash and I were up the room changing/resting when Dad called up to us (on the hotel phone!) and told us we HAD to come down and see all the stormtroopers.
We’d never seen that many before.
We tried to go to Evening in Bree that year, but after sitting in the hallway for a long time waiting on the room to open, they came out and said they were moving it or moving the line or something somewhere else. I don’t remember what the deal was, but Ash and I didn’t want to mess with it anymore, so we left. But that’s why there’s this random photo of a Ringwraith with me totally chilling up against a wall in the background.
For whatever reason, dad switched my camera to panorama mode and took a photo of the Grinch. And then Walgreen’s printed it that way. So I have a printed out panorama photo of the Grinch in my photo album.
There was a fancy schmancy car parked in the Marriott roundabout. I don’t know why.
I got my picture with it for some reason.
Since dad is a musician and had the camera most of the weekend, I have a ton of photos of concerts and performances that I personally did not see:
I don’t know why but Ash and I decided we’d pose next to a caution wet floor cone? (Also hello lazy Monday “Dawn the Vampire Slayer” costume)
And also posed with a broken elevator:
And here’s my glowing foot hovering above the Atrium Level.
Our flight out was late in the day Monday, so we checked out, checked our luggage (the entire back half of the Atrium Level was just rows and rows of people’s luggage) and hung around in panels until time to go. We even went to closing ceremonies (only time that has ever happened) before we finally headed back to the airport.
Man that was such a good time.