Glorf.Blog

I’ve been a rabid consumer of in-character publications and documents in the fest larp, Empire. From newspapers to magical periodicals, to ‘serious’ papers like The Moon, I’ve been spending a decent amount of IC currency every event on paper goods. Some people go to IC bars, some people gamble it, and I buy papers. I mean I do the other two as well but that’s not the question at hand.

I’d been heavily inspired by papers like The Moon, who are a frankly deranged Marcher publication written by octogenarians, who have never been to the in-character area of the game (the place where the player characters, all the movers and shakers of the setting go). I decided to take a run at an IC paper for E3 this year, but printing issues meant I got onsite with about 5 copies, and sold three of them all weekend.

This time I took more time to work on it, and had them printed professionally (which turned out cheaper than all the printer ink I had to buy to make this work the first time around!). My goal was to make a paper that came off as trying to tell actual news stories, but that was a bit of a shitshow internally, with odd stories creeping in. There’s some useful IC information there for folks who buy it in the field, but also some utterly mad stuff in there, with a healthy dose of good-nature snark.

I also bought a glass-fronted box with a coin slot, so people could self-serve rather than me having to sell the paper- This meant I could just leave the box out and have it ‘sell itself’ while I went and played the game. If I made my whole weekend about it I’d probably be able to make more money, but the self-service box was a good enough vending machine that I’ll definitely do another issue next summit. You can find a copy of the paper below.

Mended Wheel Autumn 387E, Anvil Edition (PDF Link)

I don’t want to do one of those ‘been a while, haven’t posted, intend to post more’ posts like I’m some youtuber who used to upload regularly and hasn’t been around for years. But I have been doing stuff, most of it for LARPs. I most recently broke out a crappy DSLR for Five Oaths' 2nd event here in Ireland, which you can find below:

[https://photos.app.goo.gl/pDerPcfZnkwfT5Mo9](Five Oaths- Game 1 2025 Misc Photos (Digital, these will stay up as long as I have the space to spare))

I also went through a couple rolls of film at Empire LRP’s Summer Equinox. I’m more leery of sharing those widely, as I don’t personally know most of the people in them, so I’ll just post a few highlights here. The black really let me explore texture in ways I didn’t think previously possible, so I’ll definitely be grabbing more Ilford XP2 for future larp photography.

I’ve also been working on a bunch of misc props and costume pieces as they take my fancy. I’ve recently come into a whole bunch of furniture foam, and along with some Flex paint I’ve been trying to make things of them- Mostly masks, or padding that would alter the shape of the person wearing it to make some good monster kit.

A lot of my photography focusses on LARP- As a hobby of mine, it exposes you to a lot of people in odd costumes in pretty natural environments, so it dovetails nicely with taking photos (both analogue and digital). I went out to an event in May, camera in hand, with the intention of just documenting it. If I got any decent A-roll, I’d be happy. What I didn’t fully expect was to get some of my images used in the Irish Times for their coverage of the event!

Where I really struggled was the dynamic shots. Combat is hectic, and having only a prime lens for most of the weekend hamstrung me (I had a cheap lens that verges on being decent for telephoto work, but the prime lens gave me far more versatility). Oftentimes I’d find myself inside a battle line, or obstructing a moving group of monsters, and I’d have to leap away lest I ruin someone’s game by being obtrusive and obviously immersion-breaking. The above shot is pretty much the only true ‘good’ combat shot that isn’t good by virtue of being centred on a well-costumed player’s face.

I had the pleasure of shooting some folks at a social event for the UK-based Empire LRP that happened over here in Dublin. I got plenty of shots of people using my DSLR but also had a chance to use Portra 800 to capitalise on the admittedly crap lighting. The pub had maybe one or two spots wherein things actually looked lit at all, outside of the immediate bar area, and I doubt the bar staff would have appreciated me jumping behind the bar for a good angle. They were patient enough, considering they were hosting a bunch of LARPers.

I’m delighted with how the colours of those costumed came out- The vibrant colours were a real help. I’m somewhat shocked at the lack of grain as well- Shooting ISO 800 film in low light, I had low expectations when it came to grain (frankly I’m dubious about anything regularly posted on /r/AnalogCircleJerk). However, these blew me away with their crispness: Even disregarding the rich colours of the characters' clothing, the texture of the linen and help on some costumes comes is clear even from these lab scans. Given the price point, I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to shoot this often- But I’ll make the best of those times I do.

Yet more snaps using the Halina Paulette Electric with an inconsistent shutter. This time I was still using Ilford HP5 Plus 400 ISO film, but I tried to get a bit more ambitious with that Feet-measured focus ring instead of just going for deep focus, far away shots, and messed around with shutter speed a bit. That’s where we get the dynamic ‘birds in flight’ shot, and the close-up ‘Interruption’ sticker, which considering the limits of the camera I’m fairly proud of.

Shot on a Halina Paulette Electric, damaged, with Ilford HP5 Plus 400 ISO film. These are some of the better shots from the roll- The shutter speed was inconsistent at lower speeds (at least, based on the sounds the shutter made) so it’s fortunate that anything came out looking decent.