Spooky Shoot

With Halloween creeping up around the corner, it reminded me of a random shoot we did at a park in Kirkland this past summer. It was quite random actually because a few hours prior, we had just landed home coming back from San Diego and instead of unpacking and chill-axin, we went shooting. To me, these pictures turned out a bit eerie which is why I thought of them when Halloween popped up in my head. These as usual were shot with the Rebel T2i using just one Vivitar 285HV speed light flash on a light stand, with a 28" collapsible Westcott Softbox.

Pretty much in all of these pictures, the focus/sharpness were off to various degree due to the low available light. The sun had already set and we were in the mist of trees and ferns right off a dirt trail. After a point it got so dark that the camera couldn't establish lock onto focus so I had to switch to manual focus mode and guess. I had Linda make some quick whipping movements with her head to get these funky shots. I like how they turned out and she killed the pose! I gotta give it up to her because there she was dressed in street clothes and in heels for a movie we were going to go watch with some friends afterwords. She was definitely not dressed for trampling around on a steep bank with twigs, shrubs, loose dirt, and bugs buzzing all up in our grill. Regardless, she still managed to repeatedly find her balance, strike a pose and whip her head around for me on my count. Of course after whipping her head each time, she lost her balance and came stumbling down the bank towards me to catch her step. Quite impressive now that I think back about it. Later on after uploading, I noticed there was a distracting wooden stick poking out of the ground next to her foot but at the time I totally didn't see it. I know I can fix it in Photoshop but again I'm posting it uncorrected for my future amusement.

Here's a few more misc. shots. While shooting a friendly woman walking her dog took interest in what we were doing. Her dog Amy I think, was really sweet and friendly so I asked if I could include her in a shot so we got one with her in it. =)

I like this one that Linda took of me. It's a simple back lighting effect using a bare flash in front of me pointed towards the camera. I turned my shoulder out a little to the side which caused the light to bounce off my chest illuminating the nearby dust particles in the air. I can't believe we were breathing all that dust but it created this cool mystical affect.

 

I think it would be fun to do a Halloween costume shoot this year so if any of my friends are putting effort into their costume this year and would like to run through a dress rehearsal per say before Halloween, let's all get dressed up and try creating some fun pictures on location. Let me know if anyone's interested! Jin