For the best Halloween photographs, here are some easy do-it-yourself ideas.
PHOTO TIP #1 — First, you need an almost-13-year-old boy willing to do all the decorating on a budget. I gave Bradley $40 and one rule: “No burning down the house.”
He pocketed most of the money, and spent a good part of Sunday digging things out of the basement making his own decorations. In case you can’t read the tombstone he made out of plywood and Sharpies, it reads:
R.I.P
Rosalind Rigby
She left shamefully.
But she did save
a bunch of money
by switching
to Geico.
(That kid cracks me up.)
He hung white flowy ghosts from
the linden tree. He got those from the basement, originally made out of white kitchen trash bags by me the year he turned 7. (For those of you who don’t know, Bradley will turn 13 this year — my little monster, Halloween baby born in Room 13 — is now, as of tomorrow, officially a teenage werewolf.) Those flood-resistant trash-bag ghosts have lasted quite a while, don’t you think?
Children throughout the neighborhood anxiously await the annual appearance of Elvira along the railing above our garage. Here’s where Bradley spent his money: $2.99 on a string of purple lights.
PHOTO TIP #2 — This is a cool picture partly because of the COMPOSITION of it. Graphically speaking, it has lots of angles and varying textures, as well as interesting contrast and shallow depth-of-field. I waited all day to get this picture, waiting for the light to give me a bit of an eery darkness and a glow to the trees. Tree fans, note the background of the shot. The tall yellow one is the
black cherry tree behind our shed. It’ll be bare soon. Once the leaves start changing on that tree, they don’t hang on very long. The shorter green one is one of the
Bradford pears next to the backyard swing. That one will still have leaves in December. Ugh. I hate raking when it’s 30 degrees out.
This happy ghost has been in our family longer than Gregory has!
The “dancing ghosts” have haunted our yard (and basement) for nearly a decade.
This scrapbook photo from 1999 shows the ghosts the first year they magically appeared underneath
the linden tree. This year, Bradley banished them to what he called the “family friendly” side yard and underneath the
Aristocrat pear.Happy, dancing ghosts live in the “family friendly” area, he says, making room for his sinister, oozing graves and bleeding storm troopers that haunt the main yard. (There’s almost always a Star Wars reference in Bradley posts, ever noticed that? Wait a minute: aren’t storm troopers robots or something? Blood? I’m SO Star-Wars-challenged.)
PHOTO TIP #3 — It’s supposed to be a nice day here this Halloween. Take pictures in the early morning, when the sun is throwing long dark shadows and casting a deep orange glow, or in the late afternoon. When taking photographs of groups of children, make sure they stand really close together. Make monster faces and snorting noises. (Remember, it’s about the MOMENT. We like natural smiles, not cheese smiles.) Take a look at the background of the picture. Shoot for something pretty, like a clump of colorful mums, or some glowing jack-o-lanterns. Turn the flash OFF, and move the children so that the sun is not directly in their eyes, ideally so that it’s shining on roughly two-thirds of their faces. If half of one cheek is in shadow, your picture will have interesting contrasts. Think of the great artists and how they use light in painting.
Click here for an example and a discussion of “Rembrandt Light.” Ever watch Grey’s Anatomy? Rembrandt light ALL OVER THE PLACE! (I love that show.)
If your point-and-shoot camera has a “portrait” setting, set it on that. If it has any zoom factor at all, stand as far away as you can and zoom all the way in. This just might give your picture that nice shallow depth-of-field that my clients LOVE in my pictures.
Or, as an alternative, you can find me in my neighborhood. I’ll be in my mamarazzi costume (mom with a big camera) following all the neighborhood children and enjoying every minute of the family fun of trick-or-treating in my sweet New Jersey town.
Oh, and if you stop by my house, don’t be afraid of Elvira. She’s perfectly happy in her perch. And that storm trooper by the door? He’ll be your candy man. Probably a good idea to leave something in the bowl. Something milk chocolate. For Elvira.
Till next time,
Peace,
jules
