Halloween Creations

It felt a bit odd carving a pumpkin this year without my son, Rogan, across the table doing one of his own. When I drove him back up to Edinburgh after his visit over my birthday weekend, in with the usual box of food any struggling student appreciates, we included a pumpkin in case he felt creative.

I think the one I've done is OK, but it doesn't quite match my masterpiece from 2 years ago. If I'm honest I think not feeling him trying to out do me meant perhaps I wasn't quite so ambitious.

However, I wasn't completely on my own as Meg decided this year she'd like a go. Feeling a certain parental sense of trepidation at the idea of her wielding a sharp knife, we agreed and I supervised her.

I lost count of the number of times I said, "gently now, gently with that knife, easy there, slowly, gently now..." while desperately trying to remove images of severed fingers from my mind.

Of course I gave her a wee bit of help here and there, but she did do most of it herself, and once I was past the relief at there being no accidents, I felt quite proud of her.

Here are our creations...


Meg's creation with the light on


Meg's creation with the light off


My creation with the light on


My creation with the light off


Back in the realms of photography rather than knives and vegetables, when I was doing the photo shoot with The Yahs a few weeks ago (see Photographing The Yahs), we tried a few shots of the 4 of them gathered together and one of them holding a flash unit, triggered remotely by my camera. It was tried at various angles and then abandoned as not working the way I wanted it to.

Looking back through the images afterwards, however, I was struck by one where the light had been held from below, giving that spooky look you get when you hold a torch under your face. So with a little bit of Photoshop editing, I was able to create a Yahs Halloween Special...



Perhaps next year I should try carving them on a pumpkin...