Home >> Halloween Portraits
Halloween Portraits

Costumes, candy, and scary movies easily make Halloween every child's favorite holiday. For parents, Halloween can also present a once in a lifetime opportunity to capture unique photographs of kids. Here are a couple of tips to get you started.


Composition
Figure 1

One of the most common errors that photographers make when photographing kids is to hold the camera up and to take the picture looking down on the child. When taking portraits, camera angle can play a major role in setting up a relationship between the viewer and the subject. Positioning the camera too high means that you are literally and figuratively "looking down" on your subject. With kids, it's usually best to position the camera at their eye level in order to render them with a greater degree of presence or respect.



Figure 2

In the shot of the fairy (figure 2), notice how little attention has been paid to the background elements of the composition. Remember that with any photograph, you should consider every element of your frame as it appears in two dimensions. Some of the major compositional errors in this image include the bright stalk in the background, which seems to be growing out of the fairy's head and the "decorative" gasoline cans, which happened to be laying right next to our subject. Also, our carefully carved pumpkins are completely hidden behind the fairy from this camera position. Make sure that what’s in your frame adds to the allure of the photograph. In other words, plan your shots.



Basic Equipment for Best Results

Low light photography of any kind can be difficult, but that can be particularly true when shooting moving subjects -- like antsy children who'd rather be trick or treating. If you want to capture tack sharp portrait shots, you should consider adding off camera lighting. There are many types of photography lighting set-ups available, but even a common household lamp or a clamp light attached to a ladder can work.

For Halloween portraiture, you'll almost always get better nighttime photography results with a tripod. They are particularly effective when shooting with long exposures or when you're not using a flash.



Use Manual Settings for Ultimate Control
Figure 3

Using a digital SLR camera in Manual mode allows you to change both the shutter speed and aperture in 1/3-stop increments. Being able to make minor adjustments to the exposure allows you to capture the look you are after. In an auto-exposure mode, you do not have this type of control. Experiment by taking a lot of shots, and eventually you will become better acquainted with adjusting your aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings.

This (figure 3) shot was taken with just one lamp as a light source. The exposure was 1/60th of a second at f/3.5. For portrait photography this exposure is quite slow and it explains why having a sturdy tripod and using a higher ISO setting is so crucial for getting a good, sharp image.



White Balance
Figure 5 Used a 4200K WB setting to find a happy medium between the relatively warm Tungsten light and the relatively cool ambient light.
Figure 4 Used a 3200K WB setting to match the color temperature of our off-camera light (Tungsten).

With digital cameras, compensating for the color temperature of the light source is done by controlling the White Balance setting on the camera. In order to achieve neutral color in the photograph, the White Balance setting has to match the color temperature of the light source. The second diagram (figure 7) shows how the various White Balance presets on the camera affect the image when using daylight or Tungsten lights. In many cases, setting your E-System camera to Auto White Balance will produce very nice results. However, in cases where light is mixing – such as sunlight and your fill light, manually adjusting the white balance using the Custom White Balance will provide the best results.


Figure 6
Figure 7


Figure 8
Figure 9
Add Additional Lighting: Fill Lights and Umbrellas

Once you've tried adding an off camera light, you might also want to experiment with adding a fill light. A fill light is simply a second light that shines less light on the subject than your main light – this can be accomplished by moving your fill light farther away from the subject (see Figure 8). Adding a fill light can help minimize harsh shadows and more evenly light your subject.

For an even better result, find a basic lighting kit that comes with lighting umbrellas. Umbrellas help to diffuse and spread the light across the entire frame, lighting both foreground and background.

Umbrellas are a wonderful tool for achieving even, broad light with larger subjects or small groups. Had we tried this shot without the umbrellas, the light would have been too directional and would not have covered both models, let alone the background (Figure 9).


Please note, the Olympus Digital School is not maintained by Olympus America. It is part of the Web Photo School family of sites.

Shooting in RAW

One of the high quality settings, available in all Olympus E-System digital SLRs, is the RAW quality setting. This setting is unique in that it produces an image file that retains a maximum amount of pixel data. Usually, the JPG format works beautifully and produces an image that is "close enough" in terms of color balance, contrast and image quality. The JPG format is much faster to work with, and is readily viewable on any computer. A RAW image file is much different in that it requires extra adjustment using special RAW conversion software.

Click here for details about the advantages of shooting in RAW.


Share your Fall & Winter Photos

Have a favorite photo or technique for Halloween, Thanksgiving, or the winter holiday season? Share it with us and it may be featured on the Olympus Web site.

> Send us your photo
> Send us your tip