Hawai’i Tattoo Expo 2025

One Year Later

Somehow, it has been a full year since I first ran my pop-up studio photo booth setup at the Hawaii Tattoo Expo. This show, hosted annually at Blaisdell Center in Honolulu, HI, Oahu, has been one of my absolute favorites to work. The local community, internal employees, and incredible guests make this a convention worth returning for every single year. So much has happened in the past year since I worked this show. I’ve left Hawaii, now living just outside of Baltimore, MD. I’ve worked a half dozen or so other conventions, and the setup went from just a small idea into something really amazing. So when Danny, the owner of the show, asked me to come back for the 10th anniversary, my reply was an obvious yes. Granted, the trip for this con was going to be a much different affair from anything I had previously attempted.

Warren during the early parts of Day One for PIAE 2025

Flying & Packing

The journey begins with a simple flight from Baltimore to Honolulu. More realistically, a flight from BWI, to ATL, to LAX, to HNL, then all of that a second time. So the flight was going to be a long one, but this was a business trip so I needed to keep the budget down. In terms of gear, I wanted no compromise on performance for this setup. I opted to pack my Pelican 1650 with 5 Godox flashes, fuses, cables, and extra accessories. Moving onto the stands, I knew that lugging around multiple C-Stands was going to be a miserable, if not impossible, task. I instead opted to bring only 1 C-stand on this trip, replacing all of my other light stands with Manfrotto variants. These were much lighter, smaller, and could still hold 25 pounds fully extended. No c-stand, but still more than enough for flash photography. All of these stands, the backdrop kit and rods, my Godox UB-165W, and multiple other modifiers were all carefully tucked into the very large Pelican V800. I should make a review on this case as it has some serious pros, and equally serious cons, but that’s for another day. My Pelican Air 1615 held all of my remaining supplies including backdrops, power accessories, modifiers, empty sandbags, and other odds and ends one might need at show nearly 5000 miles from home with limited access to replacements. In order to make all of this even somewhat manageable as a solo act, I finally invested in the Rock n Roller RS12 Stealth Cart and a set of bungee cables for it. This cart absolutely revolutionized how I got from point to point on this trip. I can say it was easily the best decision I made in preparing for this journey.

Setup

The setup this year was going to be a massive improvement over 2024s show. The booth has expanded into a 5 light setup, allowing me the ability to do a wide variety of photo styles simply be changing which lights are active. I’m not sponsored, but the Godox system of lights is not only affordable, but incredibly easy to use. Just pick the channel and name then match that on the X3 trigger. That’s it; nothing else to it. I ran two MS200V lights on the back left and right edges as edge lights, each with a colored gel behind all of the diffusion. Above and center as a hair light I ran a 300w MS300V with a simple snoot modifier. This was placed around 11 feet in the air, allowing it to remain quite the surprise for everyone who stepped in for a photo. The key was another MS300V with a massive UB65W umbrella, with another MS200V and a strip softbox as the fill on my right. I use a strip box for fill at tattoo and anime shows specifically because I need to be able to quickly accommodate full body shots and headshots without physically moving the lights. In the past, a typical spherical or octagonal softbox simply didn’t deliver enough light to the lower portions of my subjects, leading to janky solutions.

@Shelbyyxsx

Shelby Shigemura during the Miss PIAE contest 2025

Process

Editing these photos was a similar process to how I usually handle it for the shows. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I essentially batch empty SD Card 1 from my Canon R6 Mark II to my laptop. I label each batch by day and subject matter (i.e. contests, times, etc) then import this folder into a premade Lightroom album. From here I’m able to quickly cull down the photos and apply edits to each photo as I review them. These are all then batch exported out into an identical export folder, where they are then added to their respective galleries on my Pixieset album. This allows me to stay extremely organized, which was a must for this show. As visible in the gallery, it is actually a massive folder with 4 separate galleries all linked. This means I can keep all contest organized by day and theme, while not overloading the main gallery for guests. It’s annoying scrolling through 500+ photos to find your own, but I avoid this when possible.

Main Gallery

This image is a direct screenshot of the main folder guests and organizers saw when scanning the QR code on the banner. This allowed me to be as hyper organized as possible.

Conclusion

It was a really amazing time, being able to come back to one of my favorite shows a year later to see how far I’ve taken the concept. I learned an absolute ton through the process. It’s really amazing going through the photos from this year vs last and seeing the massive difference. The lighting and editing are all around so much more refined and controlled, and the addition of the small fog machine was a massive hit. While I don’t want to rely on that machine for all photos, having used it at all means it’ll be very difficult to resist the urge to bring it to every show. I’m constantly refining the techniques I can use in conjunction with something so simple, and always discovering new ways to make a photo memorable for my guests. There were a few learning curves to take away from this entire experience though. First and foremost, I need to find a way to make as much of the gear as light as possible. I will most likely switch all cases to their respective Air varieties from Pelican until I find a better alternative. I’ve already begun the process of switching all stands to higher end, but lower weight, alternatives. So far experimenting with some Manfrotto stands has given me mixed results, so I’ll be incorporating a few Matthews varieties next to see if I prefer them or not.

I can’t end this post without a massive shoutout to my friends in Hawaii! Thank you so much to Baca, Thomas, Farrah, and Jacob for not only helping me with setup, but basically making this entire process possible. The day I arrived I apparently brought a tsunami with me, which meant even something as basic as an uber or car rental became difficult. I was able to stay at Bacas home, basically use Thomas as a personal Uber the entire trip, and rely on everyone for assistance every step of the way. I’m not exaggerating when I say this wouldn’t have been possible without them all, and I’m eternally grateful. I look forward to returning to Hawaii as soon as possible to see my friends again.

Thomas & Jacob

Both of them “super carefully” watching my camera when I took a quick restroom break. They totally didn’t pick it up and take a small gallery of their own images.

In the meantime, I’m actively pursuing more shows in my new area of Baltimore. I just completed the Big Dill Pickle Party here in Baltimore this past weekend, and it’s such a wild story that it deserves it’s own upcoming post. The next show to follow is Hocus Poke-Us in York, Pennsylvania! Follow my upcoming show schedule to see where I’m bringing this pop up portable photo booth next.

@Nessa.in.nyc

Nessa during the Big Dill Pickle Party, Baltimore Sep 2025