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Wednesday, November 01, 2017

Photo Blogging Challenge (October 2017): Photographer’s Choice

Oh man, October was a busy month. And I had so many photos to choose from that I almost didn't want to stick with my plan. We had our county fair, we had the State Fair of Texas, we backpacked, we worked on Eagle projects, my youngest passed his Eagle Board of Review, I went to Chicago and saw things and ate things, went on a walk around here and learned stuff about my town I didn't know. And then there was Hallowe'en. So let me get this out of the way, head over to my Flickr stream for October and peruse my other photos, if you will. I was pleased with many.

On to this Photographer's choice. I decided to highlight some of my Hallowe'en creeps using long exposure and light painting of sorts. Some of these, I handheld a speedlite and manually fired the flash, multiple times on occasion, others I used my phone or another flashlight to play with the lighting. I'll try to recall which method I did on each one.

This one was my phone flashlight held underneath the chin. I had some ambient light on this one, it was only a .6 second exposure, f5.3 and ISO 400. I decided to close down the lens on subsequent ones to give me more DOF.
October2017_1060434-3

This guy is all iPhone flashlight. I learned that you have to make sure the screen is turned off when using your phone in this way. The ghostly streaks are the front of my phone as I am running around painting my fisherman. In the end, I liked the ghosts so I left them. He is a 10 sec. exposure at f14. I stuck with ISO 400 on all of these, I think 
October2017_1060439

As with the fisherman, my oldest, John, designed this setup. He likes Hallowe'en as much as I. I had quite a bit of ambient light coming from behind on this one from a floodlight on the house. I manually triggered my handheld speedlite, first from the right hand side of the grave marker, then two or three times from the left hand side of the ghoul. 4 sec at f14. 
October2017_1060509

This one was tricky. I had made several attempts using a handheld speedlite but was always unhappy. I couldn't keep the flash off the background. What I ended up with was a solar spotlight from the yard. I held my hand over it in such a way to make a slash. I kept the slash over her face for about 60% of the exposure then moved it across her forearm to highlight the snake. 10 sec at f14
October2017_1060531

With this little banjo player, he was picking up some of the glow of the jack o' lantern but not enough to fully light him. Jack was overpowering so I put him on a dimmer and dropped his intensity by about 50%. With my handheld speedlight, I decided to key the banjo skeleton from the left and let the punkin fill in the rest. 4 sec at f14.
October2017_1060478

There are my five. I took a few more like these for my daily shots. I like experimenting with light manipulation. Digital photography certainly makes it much easier. Take a look at PJs blog for some more submissions. Come back next month for a new set with a new theme. 

4 comments:

Lisa said...

Oooooh, deliciously creepy! Lighting makes or breaks every photo and these are magnificent. I hope all your little trick-or-treaters were sufficiently scared!

Tamara said...

Goodness gracious, those are some creepy, yet excellent pictures! I didn't understand a word of what you were trying to explain about how you took them, and I am just glad I am viewing them on my screen while sitting in a safe environment ;-)
Excellent post!
PS: I see you're a Geocacher. We used to be active a couple of years ago and just resumed a little container hunting during our vacation!

Katherine said...

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! THESE PICTURES ARE CRAZY AMAZING!!! First of all, Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday.... but add your incredible photo skills to it and WOW! These are my very favorite for the month. GREAT GREAT JOB!!

Out and About with the GeoKs said...

Wow, wow, wow! Loved the explanations you provided, as I have not played around with light painting in a very long time and now that I have a speedlite....

Any/all of these are Halloween greeting card-worthy. Maybe a side hustle?