There are so many different ways to capture the spookiness of the season of pumpkins, ghosts, witches and very sweet snacks and treats that whatever type of photography you prefer, it’s a great time of year. Here are 10 tips to help you make the most of your Halloween photography.
10 Tips for Hauntingly Fantastic Halloween Photography
Whether you shoot commercial photography or if family and portrait are more your things, these tips will all be of benefit to your Halloween photos.
1. Photograph Ghosts!
Okay, you might not have a resident ghost prepared for you to photograph, but you can have a go at some ghostly images. The easiest way is to shoot a long exposure shot of about 15 seconds and about halfway through the exposure, have someone walk into the frame, freeze at a predetermined spot and pose. Make sure to shoot in lower light conditions, so you do not over-expose the image, and use a tripod to prevent camera shake. Your subject should look ghostly and a little transparent. Perfect!
2. Spooky Halloween Settings
To keep your images looking sufficiently spooky, your Halloween settings will probably veer toward the under-exposed instead of accurate or over-exposed. If you’re a little concerned that you might end up with a pile of unusably under-exposed images, try exposure bracketing. This allows you to take 3 differently exposed shots with each shutter release: 1 set to your preferred exposure, 1 a little under-exposed and another a little over-exposed.
Look out for lighting that enhances the spookiness of Halloween, too. Think about the candles in Jack-o-lanterns and make the most of street lighting that can light your subject but keep the background dark. Remember that your camera might struggle to autofocus in dim light, so be prepared to use manual focus.
3. Use Spot Metering Mode
Managing your exposure will be vital to getting great Halloween photos. If you shoot using a matrix or evaluative metering–the standard metering mode–it can be quite easy to lose any dark and atmospheric feel to your scene. Switch to spot metering, and you can precisely control the point from which your camera takes its light meter reading. This, in turn, determines your exposure. Metering from a fairly well-lit area of the scene, for example, in the clearly-lit area by a Jack-o-lantern’s candle, will help keep the overall feel of the image dark and spooky.
4. Experiment With Depth of Field
If you have to use a wide aperture, which in turn gives you a shallow depth-of-field, to get your exposure, don’t be afraid of it. Embrace it! Use a shallow depth of field to enhance the spookiness of a mysterious Halloween backdrop and to help keep the focus on your subject.
5. Watch Your Background
You don’t want your backdrop to distract from any amazing Halloween costumes worn by the children you’re photographing, but rather enhance the images and contribute to the feel of the pictures. If you don’t have any dedicated photography backdrops available, look for green or woody spaces outside that are suitably ‘Halloweeny’ but not overwhelming. Or, try some old buildings.
For Halloween product photography, you may want to invest in specific backdrops to always have an evenly dark backdrop. Or get one that captures the orange colors of Halloween.
6. Get in Early
The chances are that children will be far too excited for patient portraits or headshot photography when they are dressed up and ready to go. They will want to go trick-or-treating or play party games with their friends. If you want to be sure of capturing some gorgeous dress-up shots of small people, do it a few days in advance of Halloween. Get your Halloween photoshoot ideas thinking cap on, find the right spot with the right backdrop and take some pictures with the excitement a bit more under control and time on your side.
7. Desaturate Your Images
When you’ve shot your Halloween photos and are in your editing suite, try desaturating your shots to increase their spookiness. The loss of color, without going completely black and white, can really help to make them feel a little bit more creepy.
8. Engage With Props and Tools
It’s really not hard to think about the props you can use to bring Halloween photos to life (or perhaps to death since it’s Halloween). There are black cats, bats, cauldrons and potions, pumpkins, candies, even autumnal leaves, and not forgetting Jack-o-lanterns. But there are also some tools that you can use to emphasize the eerie nature of Halloween:
- You might want to use colored lights or gels on your lights to create green or orange hazes.
- Maybe hire a smoke machine or buy some smoke bombs for laying down some creepy mist.
- You can use gobos or bokeh filters in Halloween shapes to add a spooky look to your background.
- Shoot through a sheet or net curtain, or cover your lens with cling film/saran wrap to give a textured feel.
9. Don’t Forget the Details
The big picture is always great but remember the little details, too. Make sure that you capture the carving in the pumpkin, the icing on the cookies, the cobwebs and spiders adorning porches and stoops, window decorations and the candy hoard at the end of the night.
10. Halloween Photoshoot Ideas
Halloween night has plenty of photo opportunities with its trick-or-treating and parties. But you might also need to set up a specific Halloween shoot for clients. So if you need a bit of Halloween photoshoot inspiration, try out these ideas or variations on them:
- Pumpkin-carving antics
- Autumn leaf fights in Halloween costumes
- Spooky silhouettes
- Cooking up potions
- Using a creepy location
- A Halloween “teddy bear’s picnic” with frogs and toads, black cats, bats and skeletons
- Brothers Grimm fairytale recreations, like Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel or Rumpelstiltskin.
Experimenting with Halloween photography is a great deal of fun, and it can lead you to new techniques, too. It might only come one day a year, but it can have a huge impact on your photography all the time. Remember, it’s about more than capturing your own family having fun. But you can do family Halloween shoots or make sure that commercial clients are prepared for Halloween-inspired products and lifestyle photography.
In a rush to go out to trick or treat or someone just made a prank on your camera? Just go to the stock photos section in Motion Array and type “Halloween” on the search bar for some spooky inspiration!
