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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