The panels I made it to were "Bluff Your Way in SFnal Linguistics", "Death, Illness, and Disability", "Writing the Other" - at which RaceFail09 got discussed, and I made my most incoherent and inaudible contribution to discussion (which still burns me...), a panel on "Lost" which I sat through half an hour of eating lunch with
Five out of seven of those panels were both intellectually stretching and fun - this is what I go to conventions for! To have a good time by thinking! - and the other two were fine. ("Aunts in Spaceships" was not intellectually stretching, which as an intellectually stretching aunt made me sad, but on the other hand it gave me lots of ideas about "Writing Gender" this afternoon.)
I took notes. Sketchy notes, but I hope to be able to write them up Tuesday. Hm. Maybe. ... *worried hopeful*
So I'll post the photos of costumes, and see what else I have time for...
My method when taking photos of people at cons, as opposed to crowds, panels, and weird bits of buildings, is to stop, ask, take photo, and then show them the photo on the camera screen. They're usually agreeable.
(I passed a woman in a big shady hat and - not a costume, precisely, but a decorative outfit - and thought briefly of asking her if she would mind being photo'd, but then spotted her nametag: Kathryn Cramer. Oops. I wandered on past her without speaking, quite glad that by chance my nametag was not visible from her angle, though I expect I was really not on her mind. At least I hope not.)
Dancing girl: yay!

Can anyone tell me where this uniform is from?

Butterfly!

(She looked at herself in my camera and said "Oh that's good!" and I said "Yes!" and thought how great it was to hear such unabashed self-approval.)
Dancing girl encounters vampire!

Cat woman!

Rorshach sells out to his corporate overlords:

"I leave you human cockroaches to your heroin and child pornography. I eat only Unico beans."

Neil Gaiman's photographer setting up to photograph fans:

