My traveling partner this year was Taiwan’s GamerBee, with Australia’s HumanBomb joining us part of the way. Standing in line waiting to check in at the Rio All Suite Hotel, we were stopped numerous times with fans wishing GamerBee good luck, people requesting for photos and autographs. The family waiting in front of us in the check in line, turned out to have a son that was going to compete in Evo and he was really excited to meet GamerBee, in the end the whole family insisted on getting a picture with Bruce.

Coverage for Evolution was also at an unprecedented scale,  two official streams run by IPlayWinner and Offcast, Nagoya Street Battle providing a Japanese stream, eLivePro with a French broadcast, Gamespot recording panels and general coverage of Evolution, IGN recording gameplay, G4TV conducting interviews and footage of top 8, and Shoryuken providing live updates throughout the weekend.

Walking into the 60,000 square feet Rio Pavilion Convention Center before the tournament, it felt improbable that this entire space would be filled up to capacity, it was just two years ago in 2009 that Evolution was held at the same venue but with only half the space being rented out. In two years could the population and interest of the fighting game truly grow to twice the size it was before? If there was an lingering doubts after seeing the line for the Evo pre-party at Insert Coins wrap around the block, it was surely gone after the rush of gamers and individuals when the doors were open officially for the start of Evolution 2011.

Over the course of the weekend I took over 6,000 photos, from the pre-party, tournament play, panel discussions, booths, autograph signings and more. Evolution felt like it had become more than just a tournament and a gathering point for fighting gamers, if felt as if it was becoming a convention for fighting gamers, a change that I whole-heartedly welcome. No longer is Evolution just a tournament to play until you are eliminated and then not show up again until day 2 with semi-finals on the big screen or on Championship Sunday. Now, there are panels and side-tournaments with significant prizes, such as the Hori VLX that my friend, HumanBomb, won at a FocusFire side tournament.

My personal highlight of the weekend was getting to meet Kayo Satoh, a Japanese gaming idol who plays C. Viper, albeit for brief moments as I was constantly running around trying to capture as much of Evo that I could with my lenses. It was very exciting being able to meet someone else in the community who shared the same experience of being a transgendered individual and personally she has been a very inspiring figure since her public coming out on television.

Let me close this all off with some of my favorite photos from Evolution 2011 and a hope that Evolution 2012 builds upon this year and grows to be even larger and better!

Congrats to our winners:

@AceofCakes

@WillHype

@Pineau45

@SoetaSoeren

@Edgeward34

So you want to win an autographed photo by members of Team MadCatz?

Follow the instructions below to win:

- Follow Team Mad Catz on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/MadCatzInc)
- Follow MarkMan on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/MarkMan23)
- Follow Karaface on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/karaleung)

(If you are already following no need to unfollow and refollow – doing so repeatedly will get you blocked and banned from the contest)

- Tweet the messages you see in quotes below just ONE TIME! (There is no advantage to tweeting more than once. You can enter once per giveaway item, total of 4 entries).

To win the autographed the Daigo Umehara photo:

Hey @karaleung & @MarkMan23 I want to win the Team @MadCatzInc Daigo signed photo giveaway for #EVO2K! http://bit.ly/oXiOqc for more info!

To win the autographed the Tokido photo:

Hey @karaleung & @MarkMan23 I want to win the Team @MadCatzInc Tokido signed photo giveaway for #EVO2K! http://bit.ly/oXiOqc for more info!

To win the autographed the Mago photo:

Hey @karaleung & @MarkMan23 I want to win the Team @MadCatzInc Mago signed photo giveaway for #EVO2K! http://bit.ly/oXiOqc for more info!

To win one of the two autographed group photos:

Hey @karaleung & @MarkMan23 I want to win the Team @MadCatzInc group signed photo giveaway for #EVO2K! http://bit.ly/oXiOqc for more info!

The Prizes:

- 8″ x 12″ (20.3cm x 30.5cm) photo printed on Kodak Endura Metallic Paper mounted on 1/8″ Masonite

- Autographed by a member of Team Mad Catz, or two members in the case of a group photo.

Official Rules:

No purchase necessary to enter or win.

1. You must be 18 years or older to enter
2. You must be following Team Mad Catz (http://www.twitter.com/MadCatzInc), MarkMan (http://www.twitter.com/MarkMan23) and Karaface (http://www.twitter.com/karaleung) on Twitter.
3. You must send out the above tweet EXACTLY as it appears. A failure to do so will disqualify you.
4. The prizes will be announced by August 2, 2011 via Twitter on above accounts and on Karaface.com
5. If you live outside the US you are responsible for any taxes, custom duties and shipping in the event you win.

Good Luck!

Here are some of my favorites from the first day, the rest of the photographs can be found at my SmugMug. More photos from day 2 and day 3 with a packed venue to be uploaded soon.

Lined up in the upcoming future I have two events that I will be shooting. First up will be Tournament Legacy’s ReveLAtions from June 8-10, 2011 and on July 28-30, 2011 will be Evolution 2011. It will be exciting to start shooting again, as I have been on a lazy hiatus since NorCal Regionals 8 last winter.

That being said, the most exciting piece of news has got to be my new  Nikon D7000 as I have been running with a Fujifilm FinePix S2 Pro; which by all account is still an amazing photo with great sharpness and color rendition, but after 9 years from its initial release it was starting to show its age. I had the chance to use the D7000 when I rented it out for a couple of events that I shot and I fell in love with the camera, so it was a must buy for me when the camera came in stock and was available again.

Below are some of the test shots that I took from the D7000 straight out of the camera, just simple NEF to JPEG conversions and exported out of Lightroom.

Remember you can see more Street Fighter/eSports photos at my Smugmug!

Daigo Umehara Documentary on NHK Part 1

Daigo Umehara Documentary on NHK Part 2

I was able to photograph EVO 2009 thanks to the help from the organization who asked me to be their official photographer. They were nice enough to provide a hotel room for me at the Gold Coast, right across from the Rio. Not exactly the most magnificent room, but given the amount of time I spent inside it really did not matter. Most of the time I was at the venue, when I was at my room it was just to pass out and sleep to rest up for the next day.

A typical day for EVO consisted of waking up around 6AM, showering, getting dressed and meeting with the staff at 7AM for breakfast. Breakfast was a time to discuss about the event and what needed to be done that day, it was also important for me to attend so I would know which events to focus on and to know an overview of how the day would be run. By 8AM, we would be at the convention hall to setup for the day. For me it would mean charging my backup batteries, uploading any remaining photos from the last day on my laptop and checking out the lighting conditions. Then from 9AM till the end of the day, it was taking photos or uploading photos with breaks to get lunch and dinner to keep documenting the event without passing out.

The event itself was a smashing success. Never had I been to an event that ran as smoothly as EVO 2009 or the energy of the crowd all of Championship Sunday. The hype was so tangible during the Street Fighter IV finals between Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong, at time I caught myself staring at the match and missing some photo opportunities. The tension of the match at times was so thick it could of been cut through with a knife, especially when Justin had to win rounds to extend the match. In the end Daigo pulled off the close victory to be named the first Street Fighter IV champion of 2009.

All in all, I loved my time at EVO 2009 and am already looking forward to shooting EVO 2010. Perhaps I will be able to shoot another big fighting game event before the close of 2009? One can only hope so!

Evolution 2009 photos can be found here.

Whereas “Believe” showed the atmosphere with the excitement and jubilation of the crowd, the Ed Ma picture captures a more intimate photo of him after 15 hours at Denjin Arcade, coming so close to winning the USA spot to Tokyo only to see it slip away. To be honest, it was a secret favorite of mine out of the entire set from the qualifiers. Though both photos capture the raw emotion that eSports can bring out of competitors and spectators, Ed Ma’s solitary figure slammed into the arcade screen with despair reminds me of just how lonely it can be for the losers of any competition. With nary an eye passing to glance at him, the crowd is too busy reacting to the elation of the victors.

Being nominated for the eSports Photo of the Year means a lot to me, especially given the fact that I only started doing eSports specific photography since May 31st, just about a month and a half. Perhaps what humbles me most with the nomination is that both photos were just taken at my 2nd eSports event, only a week’s experience into the genre. For the fighting game community to embrace my photos in such a short period of time, my hope is that my nominated photo can bring the due exposure the scene truly deserves. Furthermore, being the sole photographer nominated from North America shows the deteriorating state of eSports in our region. My hope is in future iteration of the awards, not only is the more of the fighting game community represented but that of American eSports is as well.

Click for all the photos nominated for the 2009 eSports Photo of the Year.

All in all, the tournament went off great. Atmosphere was great, people enjoyed the matches and felt better prepared afterwards. I took a number of photos of the tournament and I would honestly say that last night’s event was probably the best looking photos I have taken thus far. I’m still learning to shoot better shots at eSports events and adapting to any situation handed to me. EVO is around the corner and that’s going to be a big display stage for my photos around the world.

Photos from last night:

That being said, yesterday’s Ladies of Street Fighter tournament was really fun to photograph. Everyone had fun at the event and stayed to watch the matches from beginning to end. Additionally, I conducted a photo shoot with some of the participants of the tournament before it started. Not all of the ladies wanted to have their pictures taken, but those who did braved the sweltering heat of the day to pose and have some fun in front of the camera.

The next big event that is coming up on the schedule is EVO 2009 held in Las Vegas from July 19-21. EVO is most likely the biggest fighting game tournament in all of North America, so there will definitely be lots of photos from the 3-day event. Until then, I’m going to be taking pictures whenever I can to make sure I’m at the top of my game when I arrive at Vegas.

Photos from Ladies of Street Fighter:

Photo shoot before the tournament

Tournament photos