I love Halloween, always have and always will. The magical time of year when the trees change colour and there is something special in the air. Last yeah I planned an awesome Halloween story shoot, unfortunately I was let down by the weather and a few other things, so it didn’t happen. I was desperate to make something happen this year, and I’d also been trying to arrange something with a lovely lady called Abi, who is a trained ballet dancer. I thought why not encompass the two.I enlisted the help of make-up artist Ellie Watkins and gave her some license to make Abi look spooky! I knew the sort of location I wanted, however finding it was difficult. The location I used in the end was in Hook, near Warsash, Hampshire. I was looking for one of those spooky looking dead tress, like it had been hit by lighting or something.My plan was to create some dance images as if she was something mystical and scary dancing in a place you wouldn’t expect a ballet dancer. As per usual the British weather, threw its own spanner into the works. You can guarantee the day I want stormy, cloudy conditions, typical blue skies, with a few fluffy white clouds.After an hour or so at my house, Ellie had created something menacing on Abi. We did worry there maybe some concerned looks after all these reports of people dressing up as clowns. Safe to say though, she looked nothing like a clown! We jumped into the car and headed to the location. For a change the weather decided to go in the direction I wanted and clouded over significantly. By the time we were at the location, the light levels had dropped and it would work perfectly.We headed to the tree (of what was left of it) to set up the shot. I used a bit of off camera flash to allow me to drop the background exposure and create some drama. I had another joker up my sleeve, in the form of some smoke. With the assistance of our lovely make-up artist, we were able to spread some white smoke into the back of the shot to add even more drama. It was not always easy as the wind kept changing directions, and I ended up in the smoke as much as Abi did.With the Bose speaker blasting out a few tunes to set the scene, Abi danced and posed to her hearts content. We were able to shoot in a few areas to create a series of interesting images. Here are the edited shots to curdle your blood. Happy Halloween!
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