It's Spooky Season
One of the photography websites I frequent ran a challenge for “Spooky Still Life” themed photos. I sat on it while trying to come up with ideas for what to do. Then, while watching Sleepy Hollow (1999), I got my inspiration during a scene in which the horseman beheaded someone in a cornfield. A nearby scarecrow with the head of a jack-o’-lantern sat against a blue moonlit sky – the pumpkin head spattered with blood.
This was it! This was what I wanted to recreate. I set out to get the supplies. My plan was to carve a jack-o’-lantern, make some fake blood, and use dry ice to make the fog effect I wanted. Luckily 🙃, no place in town sells dry ice so I had to use a fog machine instead. I lit the area with RGB LED panels and stuffed my brightest flashlight inside the pumpkin for a safe and very effective inner-glow.
While the process of carving a pumpkin is probably something that most are already familiar with, I thought I should include it just for documentation sake – especially considering how prevalent AI is these days and how quickly people are to claim something was AI generated. It’s even made me skeptical of good photography, but we’ll save that for another discussion.
So, as you can see, I gutted the pumpkin and carved a face reminiscent of the one featured on the scarecrow. The last photo was my first test of the blue RGB lighting coming in from the right, a dimmer, warm light coming in from the left, and a pumpkin with a mouthful of fog. It felt too… Empty. So, I gathered some things from around the house – dried flower petals, a pinecone, a candle, another pumpkin, and some owl feathers. The results were pretty much exactly my vision. Enjoy the gallery below!
