A Photographer’s Memory: Superboy in August of 2019
Superboy cosplay by Cesar Torres, 2019.
Today I want to take you back to a series of Superboy cosplay photos I shot in my photo studio in 2019. This was a different time, before COVID would change the world, before the collapse of many systems. I want to revisit this creative process so you can see how these images turned out the way they did.
Why Superboy?
To me, Superboy has always invoked images of innocence and naivety. Superboy embodies the archetype of the Fool, visible in the Fool tarot card. This is not an insult to Superboy or his intelligence. It simply means that this hero has yet to encounter his rites of passage, or in some sense, his own failings that life will bring.
I chose to slip into Superboy’s spandex suit for fun as a way to embody this character for my fans, back in summer of 2019. I had purchased this cosplay from the web site Hero’s Time, which used to sell thousands of custom superhero suits, made to order. That web site is now gone, presumably gone out of business. It’s now a memory more than anything.
As a Mexican artist with a beard, I knew that my look as Superboy would go against cultural expectations about the comic book hero. That was my choice to make.
Below you can see one of the final shots from that session.
Superboy cosplay by Cesar Torres, 2019.
The Gear and Method
For this shoot I chose sunglasses, to add a touch of mystery and flair, as well as a soft nod to leather culture. I shot this image in my home studio using a Sony NEX-5T camera and some LED lights and reflectors. I used seamless paper, and I shot the images with a timer. This approach to self portraits continues for me to this present day, even though I work with new setups and cameras. I still enjoy the sense of the timer ticking down and giving myself usually 10 seconds to hit the pose.
Superboy cosplay by Cesar Torres, 2019.
The Edits
This image was edited in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. The only retouching I did was to erase a few stray beard hairs. The end result is a studio shot that I was able to share out with my Patreon subscribers. Since then, I have left the Patreon platform so I can reach you here through my web site directly.
Superboy cosplay by Cesar Torres, 2019.
Your Feedback
What are your reactions to these images of Superboy? And what kind of future posts about my creative process would you like to see more of? Send me a note.
