I Shot A Ghost! Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween to those that celebrate it! For Halloween, I wanted to share a recent photo of a ghost in Downtown Truckee, California.
Every year, I get hired to photograph the Historical Haunted Tour which is a fun event in Downtown Truckee where groups of performers entertain audiences at different locations around town with different "scary" stories that are very loosely based on Truckee's history. I wrote a bit more about the event in previous posts so I won't go into more detail on that.
This photo was based on one of the performances. In this story, the jar is supposed to be filled with a new magic mushroom moonshine that people were going crazy from. The mushrooms had been found growing on dead decomposing bodies after a tragedy with the train where many people died. I really don't think there was much actual history involved with this performance but it was a fun and funny one. The skit actually took place inside the train but I was asked if I could create one of my "ghost" photos on the back of the train. Of course I could!
This photo was shot on a Canon 5DS R and a 24-105mm lens set at 24mm. These ghost photos are always a bit tricky to shoot and it always requires me to do many test shots while I dial in the perfect exposure for the ambient light, the light from the flash, and the movement of the "ghost". There was a fairly bright light on the corner of a building that was right behind the camera so I was able to use a fairly low ISO of 200. Even though it was fairly bright out, I used a wide aperture of f4 in order to let in a lot of light and so it would pick up the light from my flash with a Lightsphere diffuser on it. This all let me to be able to have a long shutter speed of 3.2 seconds.
For these types of shots, I prefer to have at least one "mortal" and one "ghost". The "mortal" must stay perfectly still during the 3.2-second long exposure. The "ghost" must stay perfectly still for about a second during the very beginning of the exposure. The flash was set to first curtain sync, meaning it fired at the beginning of the 3.2-second exposure. The "ghost" then slowly backed out of the frame, leaving a transparent looking body with streaks of light coming from it. It leaves an illusion of a moving ghost that is always a fun look and always makes the event organizers happy.
I hope you enjoyed this ghost photo and tutorial today, and I hope you have a Happy Halloween!
Scott Thompson
Scott Shots Photography
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Great photo and everything turned out just in the spirit of Halloween! Thank you @scottshots
Thank you @serkagan! Right?! It even has a great orange color. That's why I held out on posting it until today. Happy Halloween!
@scottshots I haven’t been on Steemit in a minute- and I saw your notification come up about a ghost photo. I really thought it would be a real one!! Although you do have some impressive photo skills! I think you owe me a real ghost photo though!
@ogc!!!! Great to see you here! If my click-bait title got you to check in, then success on my part, hahaha! Thank you! Maybe I'll go out tonight and see if I can hunt down any real ghosts...
hahaha.. it would be so creepy to see a red handkerchief flying around during the foto shots, really cool and you make a halloween more fun though
Indeed. Glad to make Halloween a bit more fun for you!
How brave of you?Capturing the shot of a ghost.Truly you know how to capture everything in your camera including the creature that everyone is afraid of.
Yes, I was totally brave haha! It's tricky to capture those scary creatures but with a little bit of luck... Cheers!
Wow, that's some tradition! Your photo is brilliant... so spooky. I'm not a photographer and don't understand the lens info, but I certainly appreciate the result :)
Thank you @deemarshall! Glad you like that spooky shot. Cheers!
That's awesome @scottshots! I love the photo and its perfect for the Halloween time. Thanks for explaining it, it would drive me crazy to try to figure out how you worked your photography magic. Hope you have fun tonight! Happy Halloween!
Thank you @thraellock! Glad you like the photo and the explanation. There's a lot going on to this kind of shot but it's a fun technique for sure. Have fun tonight too. Happy Halloween!
So cool! I like how you share how you did it!
Thank you! Yeah, I usually try to include a bit of "how-to" info with my photos. Glad you liked that!
Thank you for your participation on the 1st #PC-Halloween photo contest. Keep steemin'!
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