Project 52 - Week 43: Spooky

There were a number of ideas that came to mind when this week's theme came up.  One of them involved carving a pumpkin.  But I am a lazy Halloween person.  Our pumpkins have all stayed round and orange and on our porch.  I don't think any of our pumpkins have seen a candle in years.

Another one would have had me buy a little cat hat with devil ears (very appropriate, but probably not acceptable to two of our four cats).

Then I realized that I had been wanting to try to photograph in a very dark room with a flashlight.  And that led to this.

Our cat Matty LOVES this room.  It's our front room and in the daytime it has a big picture window that he looks out of, while at night the only light that comes in (if we aren't using the room) is the ambient light from the other rooms that filters through the doorways.

So here is what I learned about doing "spooky" photos with just a flashlight.  You need just the right flashlight. It took two to find it for me.  The first was too bright with too large a light circle.  I wanted a small light circle.  I knew that Matty, who is fascinated with light, would be curious enough to step into the circle.  I tried to position myself where he might look.  You can see the reflection of the circle off the right side of his face.

You also need to use your model light to focus, and your image will ultimately still be a little soft because of the noise due to your lack of light.  I had my ISO cranked WAY up, and I used a bit of noise reduction on this image in post process.

Matty is a spooky character (CHARACTER being the primary word here).  He does lurk.  I knew he would be the ideal candidate for this image.  I would have loved if he had looked straight at the camera, but this makes him look like he is stalking in the dark, so I will take it.

I did one other image with the flashlight.

This time Matty looked at the camera, but the light caught the rug, which is cacophony  of color that would have taken the focus away from Matty, so I turned the image black and white.  Once again I had to use some post processing noise reduction.  I held the flashlight a little higher and further from the subject this time which gave me a wider swath of light, but I still missed Matty's left ear tip, as he did not move all the way into the light.  Maybe if I do this enough, he will become my new flashlight model.

Next year it's definitely the little devil hat.

Now for more spookiness, hit the blog circle starting with Darlene Dykas Woodward of Pant The Town Pet Photography, serving Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Halloween!