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Feature: Take Cool Halloween Photos

It's that time of year again--when kids don scary costumes and run through the streets in search of candy. It may not sound like much of a holiday, but Halloween has been celebrated like this for more than a hundred years. This year, why not take some spooky pictures of the event? Let's talk about how to do it.

Turn Off Your Flash

The heart and soul of most Halloween photos is that creepy, yellowish glow caused by flashlights and candles in the dark. So to really capture the essence of Halloween, be sure to turn off your camera's flash and shoot just with natural light.

As you can probably guess, night photography guidelines apply here. Your shutter speed will probably be pretty slow, so you'll get better results if you can mount the camera on a tripod or brace yourself against a door frame or some other support. It's okay to leave the camera in automatic exposure mode, but to minimize the length of time that the shutter is open, you might want to increase the camera's ISO setting so it can capture light more efficiently.

Shoot a Jack-o-Lantern

Those spooky pumpkins are the very epitome of Halloween. How do you get a great photo of one? As I already mentioned, take your picture in the dark, with the flash off. Let the candlelight inside the pumpkin provide most of the illumination.

But don't rely entirely on the candles inside, or the outside of your pumpkin will be in silhouette. To help illuminate the outside of the pumpkin, set up a few candles in front of it, so candlelight will provide more uniform illumination. You'll probably want to keep those outside candles out of the picture frame, though.

And here's a trick most people don't think about: If you're taking a picture of a jack-o-lantern, use more than one candle inside the pumpkin. Pack two or three of them into it to make the face glow more strongly.

Paint Your Subject With Light

Taking a picture of kids in costume? You can add a great glow to the trick-or-treaters if your camera lets you leave the shutter open for an extended period, such as 15 or 30 seconds, and if you have a tripod or some other secure support. Mount the camera on a tripod outdoors, in the dark, and frame your subject. Press the stutter release to start your long exposure. Then run behind the subjects and turn on a flashlight. Point the light towards the camera and trace the subjects from behind, as if you were outlining them with a giant paint brush.

If the scene is dark enough, you won't show up on film, but the light will add a cool yellowish glow all around the edges of the trick-or-treaters.

Mind the White Balance

When you get your photos onto your PC to do some touch-up work, feel free to run some one-click fixes in your favorite image editor to tweak the brightness, contrast, and sharpness. But don't change the white balance: Your image editor will probably try to "fix" the color in the scene, which usually shifts the spooky yellowish glow to an ordinary white.