Love it or hate it, Halloween will soon be here. And if you and your family are involved in any kind of celebration or event, it is an ideal opportunity to get some great photos. But how do you make your Halloween photos stand out from the crowd? The kind of photos that get looked at rather than scrolled by?
In this article we share a few ideas and tips about how you can achieve the best Halloween photography this autumn.
Halloween events tend to centre very much around the children, so this is a great place to start. If you are with a group of children who have spent a great deal of time and effort on their Halloween costumes, then this deserves capturing on film.
Start with some individual shots of children in their costumes. If you are not used to working with children, check out our guide Top Tips on Baby and Child Photography for useful ideas on how to get your subject to relax and look their best.
Then move onto some fun, posed, group shots. It will take a few minutes – and perhaps some bribery in the form of sweets – to organise and arrange the children but will be well worth it. Try to group children of similar sizes together, perhaps having some standing and others sitting or kneeling at the front. Fill the frame so that you do not end up with a lot of wasted space, and can get as much of their faces and costumes as possible. And when you are taking the shots, a good way to keep the children looking happy and natural is to get everyone to sing a song : try a popular pop song or perhaps a Disney anthem.
The other best Halloween photography essential is to photograph children in their costumes as they set off trick or treating. As well as the costumes themselves, make sure you capture emotions such as excitement, laughter, and that little bit of fear. This will bring a touch of reality into your shots, and ensure that you achieve the results you are looking for.
Halloween decorations seem to get more spectacular each year, and are well worth photographing. One of the iconic images is pumpkin lanterns, which can be photographed individually, in groups, or as a feature in other Halloween decorations. However, it can be difficult to get the lighting right to do the lanterns justice.
One way round this is to increase the amount of light in the image by adding either more candles or LED lights inside the lantern. Then to showcase the design of the pumpkin itself, try using a slow shutter speed. This will allow more light to enter the camera, providing more opportunity to capture the fine detail.
Look around for other eye-catching decorations too. Candles, wreaths, cobwebs, ghosts and many other strange items can make brilliant, quirky photos. And one of the secrets of the best Halloween photography is to spot unusual combinations and make a feature of them.
Another tip to consider is using a macro lens or macro mode to get really close up shots that show the detailed designs and textures to their best advantages. You can achieve some wonderfully arty shots by using your camera settings to focus sharply on a subject such as a candle or lantern then blurring the background. For tips on macro photography check out our guide Small is Beautiful : How to succeed in Macro Photography.
A Halloween party presents many opportunities for some memorable shots of family and friends. For example, photos of individuals, couples, groups – all of which can either be posed or completely natural. You can get some particularly good spontaneous group shots when people are involved in some interactive activity such as eating, playing games or dancing.
As is often the case, there are two main ingredients for the best Halloween photography at parties. The first is to always be on the lookout for those golden opportunities. Whether it’s the joy on the face of a prize winner, a couple of children dancing, or the dog running off with a sausage, be ready to capture it. This means always having your camera to hand and not hesitating to grab a shot that is unlikely to be repeated.
The second ingredient – as is always the case with digital photography – is to keep shooting. Take far more shots than you actually need : you can always delete the unwanted ones later. Even if it feels as if you are taking the same shot over and over again, it’s far better to take too many and end up with a great shot than take too few and miss out.
Aside from all the action involving people, taking a few night shots outside can also provide you with some great opportunities. The key to achieving the best Halloween photography in this situation is to get the lighting right. In our article Want to learn about photography? Start here we explain about the “exposure triangle” and how to use the best combination of aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings for different lighting.
Some experts also recommend spot metering for high contrast images such as dark nights with moonlight, fires, lanterns or candles. Spot metering enables a very precise evaluation of light from a very small area of the scene, setting the best exposure for the shot. Most DSLR cameras have a spot metering setting, so make sure you have a look at this – and all the other settings – before Halloween so that you are confident about what you need to do to achieve the effect that you want.
One last tip for great night shots is to use a tripod to avoid hand shake. If you don’t have one available then a suitable hard surface would do. Also consider using a timer so that you don’t need to touch the camera at all to take the shot.
In amongst all the Halloween activity, also be on the lookout for special everyday moments. These make great shots irrespective of what else is happening at the time.
For example, a tender interaction between an adult and child, a loving glance from one partner to another, A joyful smile on the face of an elderly relative, or someone special having a pensive moment to themselves. We can take all of these fleeting – and seemingly insignificant – expressions so much for granted, but these are the photos that will be treasured in years to come, and will instantly bring back memories of the happy times you all had together.
We hope that this article has given you some ideas and inspiration for the best Halloween photography and that you get some great images of a wonderful time with family and friends.
Remember to check back here soon for more helpful photography guides from Print Your Memory.
