Fall is Festival Time

Towns and cities cross the country are having fall festivals this month.  I find this a good excuse to eat funnel cakes, corn dogs, and giant ears of corn on the cob dipped in some butter like substance.  There is also a phenomenon sweeping the country, or at least the South, that proves the theory that anything can be deep fried and eaten.  I have tried everything from deep fried Twinkies and Snickers bars, to deep fried ice cream and I will admit that 375 degree oil and some powdered sugar improves most things.  I attended the Belmont, NC Fall Festival over the weekend and met some very nice people, along with a number of politicians.  The array of fried food was not as stunning as something you would encounter at a state fair, but it was nonetheless impressive.  My favorite was deep fried Kool-Aid.  My diet wouldn't allow me to try it, but all the kids around speculated that it would be good.  Now that I think about it, nobody actually tried it.  Maybe some things are too weird...even for the South.

Here are some pictures from the festival.

click on any picture for a larger image.

 Yes, that's a giant snake around his neck.  A live albino python something or other.

Make plans to visit a Fall festival near you.  It's a great way to meet, great people, politicians, giant snakes, kids, clowns and maybe try some fried Kool-Aid.


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For a good Cause

I had the opportunity today to shoot some pictures at the 4th annual Cruise-in for the American Cancer Society.  This was a huge collector car, hot rod, and truck show and there was even a boat or two.  I think every car manufacturer was represented and some of the customization was fantastic.   Here are some of the shots I took.

Click on any picture for a larger image.

The number 7 race car in the last photo was dedicated to victims and survivors of breast cancer.  They were asking for signatures so I signed my mother's name as a breast cancer survivor.  Almost every family has been affected by cancer in some way.  Consider making a donation to the American Cancer Society.

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Shooting Zombies

Maybe I should have titled this post "How to make halloween photos pop" but that sounds rather boring and somewhat textbook.  Plus Zombies are all the rage these days.  Now if you encounter a real zombie, I would suggest that you run, rather than risk getting caught trying to take a picture.  Can zombie pictures even be seen?  Now I am getting confused with vampires.

How about we move on the the actual subject (finally) of the blog today.  Taking pictures of your kids or significant other in a costume.  How do you get the picture and make them look scary?  If your child is a princess, that is another blog.  If your child or boyfriend, husband, girlfriend, or wife is a vampire, mummy, frankenstein, ghoul, zombie or any other type of creature that goes BUMP in the night, why not take a picture of them that actually looks scary...and cool?

The secret is...lighting.  Shhh don't tell everybody, then all the moms will have pictures of their little creatures with cool effects.  Remember putting a flashlight under your chin for weird effects when you were a kid.  Well, that's creative lighting.  Look at a couple of examples.  Again, you have to look at me as the model.

This is me looking normal.  Well I mean the lighting is normal (although I think I look like George Clooney).  In other words, it is just me, in front of a black background, with a light directly in front of me.  The same effect you would get with a cellphone or small camera with an on-camera flash set on automatic.

Same model, same camera, same room, same backdrop.  What's different?  I turned off the camera flash and put a lamp below me pointing straight up at my chin.  I also got close to the camera and scowled a bit.  Make sure you set your camera for nighttime shooting and turn the flash off.  you will need a fairly strong lamp or light source or you will get blurry pictures, which are sometimes good too for that "ghostly apparition" look.

Here is another one lit from below.  Have the subject move their head around and try different lights and angles.

In this one I was trying to make myself look ghostly.  I desaturated my shirt in Photoshop to lose the color, but the rest of the effect is all lighting.  This effect is achieved by using several light sources, lamps, or flash units work equally well, to put lots of diffused light on me, but not the background.







Play around with lighting when shooting goblins. Remember, the only real difference in any of the above shots was the changes in the lighting.  Stay tuned for more Halloween photo tips.  Coming soon -- How to shoot a jack-o-lantern.



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Make your own backdrop

Have you ever wanted to take a portrait of someone and you want a particular color for the background?  It happens to photographers all the time.  Few professional photographers and no average hobbyist carries 20 different colors of backdrop with them.  Or do they?  If you have a white wall and some ingenuity you can make a background of many colors.  

Let me explain.  

This is a headshot of me.  Pay no attention to how bad I look or the strange expressions on my face in these shots.  I was the only model I could get cheap and on short notice.  The important thing here is the background.

None of the backgrounds were Photoshopped in any way, all the changes are strictly from the lighting.

I am just standing in front of a piece of white foam board clamped to a light stand but a white wall works even better.  A white sheet hung from a wall or draped over a pipe works in a pinch, but be aware that every wrinkle will show.  So this is just plain lighting on me and a flash on the background.  You can use a strong lamp on the background.  Nothing fancy here, but the shot is desirable because I stand out from the background.  It is clean and white.

This is what happens if you turn off the light on the background.  The white wall turns grey.  This is due to the fall-off of the light.  If I sped up the shutter speed or closed my f-stop I could make the background go to black.



But what if you don't want, black, white or grey?

Nothing changed with this photo from the first one except I laid a small piece of blue plastic called a gel, on my background light source.  In my case it was a small flash unit but if you are using a lamp, think about scarves, or a piece of colored plastic used for wrapping presents or kids Easter baskets.  Nothing changed for this shot except that i bent down and put the blue plastic on the flash.






.

The results are limitless, as long as you don't run out of colored scarves or plastic,
here's one in red.

This one is green, but a very light green.  I think you get the idea, now go get your camera and practice.  If you have kids or a spouse, you won't have resort to self-portraits.

















If you have any questions about this technique or would like to know more details, contact me via e-mail, phone call, Facebook, or Twitter.  All the links are on my website.


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