Hallowe’en

Well given the date I actually made an effort to get some 'spooky' photos today. The gun-metal sky this morning certainly played its part in creating this shot of a crow.

A more straightforward shot, but of an equally gothic bird, is this one of a jackdaw.

I also fired off a few frames in the churchyard (yes I really was planning all this!). Putting all the elements together (with some heavy filtering), welcome to Hallowe'en!

As for the rest of this post, before Shutterbug showed up last night I was taking more photos of the garden pond (newts and damselfly nymphs). Photographing down into water with flash is always something of a gamble. If the angle is too deep, the light simply reflects back; if the angle is too shallow or the flash reflects on the pond lining, the colour gets washed out. Just occasionally though, the potential problems enhance the shot. This newt was just far enough away to avoid the worst of the light reflection, and the distance and angle served to flatten (rather than extinguish) the background.

With a slightly deeper angle, and away from the edge of the pond, I get something like this.

Deepen the angle again (but not as far as 180°), you get an even rich colour, and a more consistent focus. The autumnal leaf was a nice bonus.

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Camera note: Hallowe'en shots taken with the Canon 7D EF and 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. Pond shots taken with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM and Canon 430EX flash unit.

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This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. cakkleberrylane

    1 Nov 2011

    Very spooky indeed! Happy Hallowe'en to you!

  2. claudeb

    1 Nov 2011

    I used to play with digital composition like that. Fun!

    Even funnier that the first photo came out spooky on its own…

  3. gdare

    1 Nov 2011

    First one :yes:

  4. serola

    1 Nov 2011

    Excellent Halloween pictures

  5. SittingFox

    7 Nov 2011

    Love that first shot of the crow!

  6. Words

    7 Nov 2011

    Adele, thanks! There's a slight filter on the processing to throw some light to the left of the shot, but it was a great pose against a dark sky.

  7. derWandersmann

    8 Nov 2011

    Newt's running for President, over here.

  8. Words

    8 Nov 2011

    I prefer our newts :whistle:

  9. derWandersmann

    9 Nov 2011

    So do I.

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