I was over at a friend's house this weekend when my fiance told me the lights were out. I ran home (thank goodness he lives just a couple doors down) grabbed my camera and went down to the lake to grab these shots of the lights. I love how they're reflected on the water. It's a shame the mosquitoes were devouring me alive, or I might have stayed a little longer before retreating back inside.

For what seems like the first time all winter, there were finally some northern lights worth bundling up and braving the cold over. Unfortunately, they were shortlived, so I only got a couple pictures, and the light cloud cover interfered a little, but overall, I'm just happy to be back outside taking some pictures.

A Little Internet Birdie told me that there was going to be some Aurora Activity tonight, so I bundled up, and ventured out onto the frozen Nelson river to try and capture it. Unfortunately, between the almost full moon and the fact that the aurora was really faint, I didn't really get anything worth writing home about. So, Instead, I set the WB to Tungsten (Tungsten or incandescent white balance gives you some beautiful blue skies at night or dusk) opened the aperture on my 35mm f/2.0 all the way up, cranked the shutter speed, (These were all taken at a range between 30 seconds and a minute+) and captured some stars and a little bit of night scenery just to justify the multitude of layers I have to bundle into in order to venture out into the frozen December nights.

Strobist Info:

Sunpak 333 Full power gelled with #368 (Winkler Blue) zoomed to 35mm - Camera Left, directed at subject and background.
SB-600 1/2 power gelled with #325 (Henna Sky) zoomed to 24mm - Inside Pumpkin

Happy Halloween Everyone!

For the final day of shooting, I went really close and low, angling up to really make Mr. O'Lantern loom over the scene. Before the shoot, I also tested about half a dozen different blue gels to try and get the right shade of dusk.

I positioned the Sunpak to camera left, and blasted it at full power to define the scarecrow's outfit and illuminate some of the background, then adjusted the shutter speed until I was happy with the ambient lighting of the scene. I went with an blue lighting scheme this time to give it a twilight vibe. I also tried a much darker red gel inside Jack's head, since on the previous nights, I noticed that when that light starts bouncing around inside the pumpkin it seems to sap all the color out and come out of his face yellow (still does, but, the darker the gel, the deeper the orange of the pumpkin) I suppose if I had masked the inside of his head with some white paper, I might have been able to capture the red a little better.

After three days of shooting, Jack's head had started going a little soft, so in order to make it sit properly on his shoulders, I had to cut it out in Photoshop, rotate it slightly, and give it a slight enlargement to cover up the rotation.

I wish we had Target up here in Canada, I would have loved to have a fog machine for this shoot.

Strobist Information:

Sunpak 333 1/2 power gelled with #324 (Gypsy Red) zoomed to 35mm
SB-600 1/4 power gelled with #3407 (CTO) and #25 (Orange Red) zoomed to 35mm
LED Flashlight gelled with #3411 (3/4 CTO) Painting body and shadow on tree

Unsatisfied with Monday's shoot I set out again to try and get my Halloween shot.

Armed with the knowledge that having the light behind him seemed to do pretty much nothing, I set the red gelled Sunpak off to camera left to blast an eerie red onto the scene.

I shot during dusk this time, instead of full blown night, so I could capture that blue ambient light, but still found myself painting his body and a couple trees with my flashlight to recapture a little bit of detail. I also lowered the angle of the camera to try and make "Mr. O' Lantern" a little more imposing in the scene.

Apparently, no matter how red you gel the strobe inside a pumpkin, once the light starts bouncing around inside there, it comes out yellow. But, it does darken the pumpkin itself.

Tune in tomorrow for the final version!