Spooky Season Is Here!

“Say, are you interested in doing some kind of Halloween shoot?”

“Oh yeah, it would be super creepy. Maybe even unsettling. Really harsh light, lots of negative space, maybe some really simplistic body paint and makeup. Maybe some smoke for atmosphere.”

It’s not every day you find people willing to help you experiment in your craft, and even less often that the experiment works out exactly the way you envisioned. As I read somewhere clever once “an artist fails when they are unable to make what they see in their head appear in the world [paraphrased based on something someone said who was far cleverer than I am].”

In this case, it came out just the way I wanted:

Creepy, dark, and maybe even a little bit unsettling.

A very big thanks to Chrissy Zelman, who runs Bailey’s Shine Shop and provided the shooting space to do this experiment, as well as volunteering as a model for something that could very easily have turned out disastrously. This also would not have been possible without Alicia Brummet, who runs Creme Caramel Day Spa, and not only brought the idea to life by doing the hair and makeup for the shoot, but also gave up part of her night to model.

Madness doesn’t happen by accident…

It takes attention to detail, knowledge of makeup, and good use of lighting.

The goal of the entire shoot was to do something unconventional, something beyond normal portraiture, and harken back to the Halloween that creators like John Carpenter envisioned.

Having a good laugh during the shoot was also important.

The ideas that drove the shoot during planning, was to capture those faint traces and visions that gave all of us those enduring and haunting nightmares when we were younger. A gentle reminder of our psychological frailty when we were still learning not to be afraid of the dark.