Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbie1/1174623/
Halloween brings the opportunity for many things: candy, chaos, getting the bejezzus scared out of ya…just to name some of the favorites. It also brings some chances for some great photos. Whether you’re taking photos of people in crazy costumes, or creating a reminder of your girlfriend’s “sexy nurse” outfit to put in the folder of goodies you’ve hidden on your hard drive, Halloween brings some interesting (and sometimes aggravating) challenges when it comes to photography. Here are 3 quick tips (more reminders really) to make sure you’re getting some good photos tonight.
Lighting
Lighting is always an issue with photography, but it’s even more important than usual on Halloween. You might be amazed at just how completely NON-scary that creepy zombie looks bathed in the artificially suped-up light of a picture taken with a flash or just how funny the colours end up looking i that photo of the kid covered in glow-sticks. Stick to natural light whenever possible, or at least keep the extra light to a minimum to avoid a serious case of “damn, that looked so much better in the dark”.
White Balance
For the love of all that is unholy and ghoulish, set your white balance properly. It’s hard enough to deal with white balance after the fact on a normal day. On a day when the entire point is to have your senses assaulted with strange costume outfits and colours in a dark environment there is no way to deal with white balance after the fact with any degree of accuracy.
Avoid a Sugar High
Depending on the sort of photos you’re taking, you may need to drop your shutter speed down quite a lot to get a decent photo without destroying the creepy/hilarious/whatever effect. That means you may need to hold the camera more steady than usual, and that could be tough if you’re hopped up on sugar too early. If you plan on getting low shutter speed photos that aren’t blurry as all hell, I’d avoid the candy if I were you. Or, if you’re smart, use a tripod and pig out.
Happy Halloween…and please, if you get some great shots tonight, don’t hesitate to drop some links to them in the comments here. I’d love to see ‘em.
