Wow, it's Halloween again, already! As if to underline the point, a cold front has just swept through texas bringing highs only in the mid 60's (Fahrenheit, that is). Now, that may not be cold to some, including the ice cream vendor cruising my neighborhood as I write, but it hasn't been this cold in houston since April.
I took this photo of a Jack-o'-lantern back in 2007. It's become our recent family tradition that we visit with my sister-in-law on Halloween and take our kids trick-or-treating around their neighborhood. This pumpkin was carved by her husband, Chris Musser. He had it sitting outside his house.
To get the photo, I lay on my stomach on the ground and rested my then Canon 5D on the pavement. The exposure was 2.0 seconds at f5.6, at ISO 400. The lighting is one candle inside the pumpkin while the top of the pumpkin is illuminated by spill from and exterior light.
In Lightroom, I've jacked with the temperature, tint, blacks and saturation. I've also tweaked the curve a little and used the local adjustments brush to reduce the brightness around the pumpkin and eliminate the detail of the concrete path and brick wall backdrop.
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The local forecast calls for a warming trend over the next few days and it looks like it will be in the high 60s or low 70s when we trick-or-treat this year. That's one of the challenges with trick-or-treating in the southern us – it can be too warm for some of the more elaborate costumes!
I was wondering about the origin of the term ‘Halloween' while writing this post. According to Wikipedia, it's a form of All Hallows Even, the night before All Hallows Day, sometimes referred to as Hallowmas but more commonly known as All Saints Day. Trick-or-treating is reportedly traced back to the medieval practice of souling where poor folk would go door-to-door on Hallowmas to beg for food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day, November 2nd.
