This weekend, I had my very first rain set shooting in my life.

I really love Japanese Cosplay studios and would love to take pictures in such a special location more often than once a year (when I am in Japan).

Sadly in Germany there aren’t many photostudios equipped with special furniture’s or special settings.

We still gave it a try and could find a few ones, which are offering furnitured or special locations for photoshootings.
Of course the standard in Germany is compared to Japan quite low but luckly there are still some, which are worth a visit.


About the studio:

This time we tried out the Uwe Lammer photostudio in Wuppertal.

Because I don’t mind traveling for a good photoshoot I decided to travel to my photographers place (Meermiau), who lives 4 hours apart from me.

(Normally he´s the one travelling, but this time it was my turn ^_-).
Uwe Lammer offers 2 different studios. Each studio has several different but unique settings.

We decided to book studio 1 which included:



A Bar setting
A living room setting
A Lost place setting
Black/ Grey/ White background setting
A Rain setting
Changing corner with a mirror

Also a fog machine was included. The studio also offers a light equipment rental.

But because Meermiau just bought two new flashes (now he has 5 including 2 umbrellas and colorfoils), we decided to go with our own equipment.

Unlike to Japanese studios you have a lot of place.
It is less cramped and you have enough room for your light setting. It is also a one costumer only studio. You don’t have to share your space and can take pictures without getting disturbed by other costumers.

The rain set:

We decided to book the rain set for an additional fee.
The rain set is approximally about 3 x 6 meter and features 3-4 different types of rain “shape”.

The most important thing: The room is heated and the water is warm or hot (depending on your personal preferences).

During the rain shoot, the owner Uwe will assist you and control the rain and fog machine (if you also want to use the fog machine). He can give you a lot of good advices and is a really nice guy.
You just tell him which water you need and if its too cold or too warm.

It was really helpful to have him, because we made pictures without an assistance and it was really comfortable to have someone around who controlled the water.

What you should know:

In this studio it is prohibit to step on the set ground with shoes without special mats.
It would be very slippery and shoes can damage the ground surface easily.
But the mats are quite big so it wasn’t a major problem.

The next thing is, you will get wet. Really really wet… down to your panties.

After only a few shots, I had a sea in my shoes and I was drowned in water.
If you go there, bring enough towels, changing cloths and shoes.

If you have parts or wig stylings which are not fit to get wet, don’t use them.
Its not like a slight rain, its like jumping into the sea and going diving for a while…
Also be careful and use water proof makeup, so it wont smudge during the shoot.
If you want to avoid looking shiny during the shoot, try to use a make up which has a good matt effect.

Uwe also told us, that the shoot is mostly over if you get water into your eyes. Because it would burn. It seems to be a bigger problem if you wear contacts.
I don’t have this problem, but my Cosplaypartners told me that’s a well known problem.

Although the water is warm, it can be a quite freezing experience.
Your whole body is wet, but during the shoot only a part of your body is under the warm water. This leads to the famous bathroom effect, that he other body parts are getting really cold.

We shooted about 1 hr per costume. Afterwards I got dry and changed.
I think this was a good timeframe. Because after 1 hour, you are not only reeeaaally wet but also really cold.
Warming up is quite important.

I also want to note, that it can be extremely exhausting.
I am pretty used to jump, run, holding difficult poses. But the water shooting was kind of level up. You have to be careful about the shape of your wig and if you want to do more poses than just standing or sitting around it takes more time than usual to get the perfect shot.

Next to your face and body it is important how you move. Because every movement causes a different shape of water.
It is also more slippery than usual and it gets cold very fast.

I can normally shoot about 15 hours a day with a break between every Cosplay for changing and a 1 hr food break.
I guess with a rain set, 8 hours are my limit.

An advice to the photographers:

Spitting around too much water is not allowed, because there are electronic devices, flashes and similar things around the rain set. But water still gets out of the designated wet area.
We used Meermiaus equipment and plastic bags to protect them.
Be prepared that you equipment might get wet.

Also plan your light setting beforehand. The faster you got your light and flash setting, the longer you can shoot. It is a run against the limited endurance time of your model.
Or the cloths and capes, which are getting heavier and heavier after every try.
I know that normally the photographers are making the light setting. When I am working with Meermiau, I make the setting and tell him what I want and need. I like to do this because due to that I have a great influence on the lightning of my pictures.
Maybe it is a good idea to talk to your model about the settings before making a water shoot.
Next time we will definitely bring an assistance.
We both work mostly without any assistant, because we don’t want to bother a third party.
But it is really handy.
If you want to throw capes, wigs or similar it wont fly as usual, because it got wet and heavy.
It is nearly impossible to get a nice flying effect without assistance.
My opinion:
It was a really great, unique and fun experience!
It was not cheap (but cheap compared to other German studios) but worth the money.
We didn’t really know if we could manage this shooting, but in the end it was really fun and we could take some nice pictures.
The owner was also a cutiepie and he assisted us even with our baggage and my very very wet costumes.
If you want to try out a rain shooting, I really would recommend to try it once in this studio.

Just be aware you will be very very wet!

Name: Uwe Lammer Mietstudio
Adresse: Scheffelstraße 33; 42327 Wuppertal
URL: http://uwelammer.de/fotostudio-wuppertal-mietstudio/