The Roving Photographer Stays Home

This setup has been working well for some time.  This year(2008), I wanted to take pictures of the kids faces as they encountered my monster.

Let me show you what I tried to do.

1. As seen from the open door, I built a backdrop from black plastic tablecloths.  You can see the flash mounted on my hidden camera - the small white rectangle over the ghoul's right shoulder.
   
   
2. From the side, you see that I covered the wall mirror (behind the pumpkin) with another black tablecloth.  You can also see the flash that I mounted high on a light stand.
   
   With the inside lights turned off, the black door, black backdrop, and black cover over the mirror, kept the inside dark and the focus on the ghoul when the door opened (with me hiding behind the door).
   
   
   

A.  From the trick-or-treaters' angle	B.  As seen from the side
C.  The setup from behind	D.  What the camera sees




3. From behind the backdrop, you can see the lightstands holding the tablecloths and high flash, as well as the camera on tripod to the left of the middle light stand (it is hard to see because it's a black camera against black backdrop).
   
   
4. And, here is the view from the camera (the colored paper covers a glass sidelight so no one gets a peek until the door opens).  Note how the camera is looking out the door from the side.  This turned out to be a real problem because many trick-or-treaters stand back from the doorway.
   
   

So, this was pretty cool!

Not perfect, as you'll see shortly, but a good starting point for future years.

The Results

Here are some of the Halloween photos from this setup:

 

Nice smiles, don't you think!

Notice that trick-or-treaters on the left got cut off by the door jamb,

And the brick shows in the background. If I aligned the camera directly opposite the door,then empty space would be behind the tricksters, and that give a mostly blakc background. 

I've got to work on the camera angle next year.

The Halloween Photos I Really Wanted

You may have noticed that each of the tricksters above (or were they treaters) were wearing masks.  Shortly into the night, I realized that I wouldn't be able to post pictures of any of any kids without masks on Improve Your Digital Photograhy. I had made no provisions for getting parental approval for using their images.

My Lessons for Taking Halloween Photos

I learned a lot doing this - and that was the main success.  But, I've got to say that I have a little further to go to achieve my desired result: Halloween photos that capture publishable looks of surprise on my visitors' faces.

Here are the lessons

• Better photo angle.  Trick-or-treaters come in groups, and not all come up to the door.  The camera needs to be aimed straight at the doorway to capture as many visitors as possible.  Otherwise, the door frame hides some of them and I get a brick background.
  

• Get permission to use photographs.  The goal was to get surprised expressions.  After all my setup, I realized that I wouldn't be able to use the photographs without permission, but I had no way to ask permission.  Next time, I will need to include a small card with the candy, offering copies of the photographs in exchange for permission to use them.

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Go back to Halloween Photos - Part 1 to read about pumpkin photos

Return from Halloween Photos to The Roving Photographer Stays Home