10 Halloween Photo Tips
Oct 20th, 2007 by wwaddell
10 Halloween Photo Tips - Wes Waddell
Halloween is spooky, but taking Halloween pictures doesn’t have to be. From a jack-o’-lantern’s scary face to your child’s frighteningly fun costume, the Halloween holiday offers unique picture-taking opportunities all to it’s own. These tips will help ease your mind and take off some of the stress this unusual season presents for an amature photographer and scrapbooker.
1. Tell a Story
Every halloween costume tells a story. Make sure you capture it.
Show your child turning into a clown or frankenstein - or whatever costume they dream up. Take photos thoughout the transformation. Get photos from the same angle, if possible. This lets you create a mini flip book style digital scrapbook page album when you are done.
Keep your camera handy when you go out too. You just never know when the perfect trick-or-treat event or moment will happen.
2. Avoid Flash Reflections
When using a flash, especially a built-in one, avoid windows, mirrors and other reflective surfaces in your backbround. I’m sure you have seen lots of images with the bright flash reflected in the printed photo. This glare can ruin an otherwise great Halloween photograph.
If you can’t avoid the reflection completely, try to stand diagonally from your costumed little angel so that the reflection is angled away from you camera’s lens.
3. Move in Close
Don’t be afraid to move in close and fill the viewfinder or LCD screen with your little costumed Harry Potter or Fairytale Princess. Step in close if your camera’s zoom feature isn’t powerful enough. This is how you emphasize what is important and keep out the rest.
Check your camera’s manual for the flash effective distances. Too close and you can wash out your image… too far and everything’s lost in the darkness. Use your fill flash setting if you have one and want the area behind to be more natual and dark looking.
4. Stay Within Flash Range
This goes hand in hand with tip #3. Typically, flash units on most digital cameras run from 6 to 10 feet with a max of around 15 feet. Subjects (your Halloween Costumed child) outside this range will tend to be too light if too close and too dark if too far away. Try and stay within the limits stated in your camera’s manual.
Note: Even though you may be within the stated flash range, weak batteries can still result in dark images and disappointing out of focas photos. Install fresh batteries or charge them fully before you head out, especially at night. It’s dark out there and your flash is going to be busy. You will want to take the extra batteries with you too… just in case.
5. Act the Part
Have your child really get into the part of the character they are playing. Snap the photo when your little football star is about to throw the winning touchdown pass or while your little witch is casting her favorite halloween spell.
Don’t be afraid to add some action to your images. If they are dressed as a cowboy, have them ride their horse or rope the fence. Your little ballerina can leap and twirl away as you snap the photos. You’ll get natural smiles and movement and they’ll have a ball acting it out.
6. Capture the Mood
Halloween is a natually spooky good time. This is the perfect time to use the warm orange and yellow glow of the sunset and jack-o-lanterns to set the mood of your posed and candid photographs.
Try turning off the flash (or cover it with colored plastics) and take a few spooky glowing shots. Use a tripod or a steady object to help keep the camera from moving and bluring the images. Use the night time setting if you have one.
Silhouette your kids in their halloween costumes against the light sky or full moon. Use the light glow from the pumkin to light up your childs face close-up. Don’t forget the flashlight can light up your face too for a spooky night time image.
7. Set Your Camera Right for the Night
The vast majority of your Halloween photographs will be taken at night, so be sure and switch to the Night Portrait mode if your camera has one. This way your camera will be able to take advantage of what light is available in the background. This makes for longer exposers though, so take that into account and steady the camera or have a tripod handy.
Note: When taking pictures in low light (not just at night), cameras are prone to move during the longer exposure times. To avoid as much of the blur as possible, press the shutter button gently or use a tripod (or other flat surface such as rocks or fence). You may also want to consider using the self timer. That timer will also let you get into some of the images too.
8. Use Natural Light
Great Halloween photos also happen during the day. Get out early (and get a head start on the candy…), late afternoon light is great for taking people portraits. Get them out in the falling leaves and into the corn fields or gardens where the pumkins grow. Dusk is the perfect time to start the spooky images while you can still see some of the backgrounds.
Fill Flash settings are also a great help just as the sun is going down to light up their little faces and still catch those final golden rays over the mountains.
9. Shoot Your Jack-O-Lanterns the Right Way
Try carving bigger openings for the eyes and mouth. Bigger openings mean more light and more light gives you a better image after the sun goes down. Also, the bigger the pumkin, the bigger the face.
To really capture the eery glow coming from your Halloween Jack-O-Lantern, turn off your flash and let the natural orages and yellows take the limelight. To avoid the blur of a moving camera, you’ll need to use a tripod or other secure surface to take your glowing images.
You’ll also want to snap a few shots at dusk to take advantage of the natural mood lighting of sunset.
10. Create a Ghostly Picture
Don’t believe in Ghosts? You can create photographic proof using your own camera. The results are surprisingly and ghoolishly good.
All you need to be able to do is to set your camera’s shutter speed to about 8 seconds or manually hold it open that long. Have your child or subject sit on the portch with the pumkins for about 4 to 5 seconds.
Then, have them quickly move out of the camera’s image.
This lets your camera create a bit of a double image and usually makes the child or subject look transparent or ghostly.
You’ll have to experiment with this a bit and you’ll need an old camera as most digitals don’t let you set such long exposer lengths. You can also have them move out of the image very slowly if you want them to have the appearance of a ghost on the move.
With a digital camera, you can also get (sometimes) the moving ghost effect just after dusk with your subject moving through the night time setting snapshot.
Digital or Computer Scrapbooking go hand in hand with learning to take better snapshots and photographs. I hope that these few Halloween Photo tips will help to make your holiday scrapbook page the best scrapbook pages ever!
Happy Scrappin’
Kathy & Wes
Popularity: 18% [?]