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How to create a scary lighting for Halloween

How to create scary lighting for Halloween is today’s topic. Halloween are great dates for you who is photographer, especially be you enjoy photos with darker air.

They are decorations, masks and costumes that can feed your imagination and show all your photographic potential and why not macabre.

Halloween mascaras and costume are sure ly one of the best things to photograph at this time of year, and can bring you visceral images.

And in today’s article, even if the date here for us has gone, I’m going to give you a touch of how to use studio lighting to create images that will make your dreams scarier, at least tonight.

How to create a scary lighting for Halloween

What you’ll need

  • A flash or lighting continues with a softbox, or a window.
  • Black paper, to cover the sides of your softbox

Optional black backdrop, can even be a black cardboard.

Configure

The first thing you need to do is turn your light source into a narrower light, so use the black cardboard on the sideways of your softbox.

This will create a very narrow shaft of light that will bring a lot of contrast that will emphasize all the fine details.

Leave about 15 cm only light only in your softbox, you can go toying with how strict your light range goes and see which result gets better.

Scary lighting for Halloween

Tip: If you usually use paper bottoms, always save the remaining flaps for these hours. 

If you are using a window as a light source, the concept is the same, if you are using dark curtains simply close them will already bring the desired effect.

Run, oops is time to shoot!

Once you already have your light source modified, place illuminating the side of the subject to be photographed.

Go moving the light towards the subject or distancing yourself from it in order to achieve a cool climate, as the light source is very strict the changes can be radical adding or taking a few centimeters in the distance.

Pay close attention to any light that falls on the background.

Your narrow beam of light should not allow much light on the subject, but if it does, try moving your light source further away from the subject.

To work with more detailed subjects it is legal to use a small aperture, f /11 for example.

This ensures that all the details are sharp, in focus, in the final photo.

If you are struggling with the machine to get a good exposure because of the small opening remember your best friend, the tripod.

So you won’t need to raise your ISO too much.

Scary lighting for Halloween

The Hit

When you’re trying to get really deep shadows with a technique like this, sometimes things like white walls reflect a lot of light back to the shadow side of your subject.

This is where having a black hitter, known as a flag, comes in handy.

Keeping your flag next to your subject to block the light that comes reflected from the white walls and that may be undesirable.

Conclusion

Even though it is an easy technique to put into practice, it is always good to give a brush stroke in the photos with some post production and bring out the whole dark side of the capture made.

Well this is if you liked the tip leave your commentary and share with a friend!

Written by Rix Mascarenhas

Rix Mascarenhas is a photographer, videographer, and drone pilot at https://www.jivephotographic.com/

Art lover, always involved with crafts, design, painting etc... As a photographer, I enjoy taking pictures and creating stories that have meaning and help people to thrive. My work is guided by the stories behind each scene that really represent the moment.

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