Ok, well, not for real…just photographically. I occasionally take part in a ‘weekly assignment’ at one of the forums I frequent, where users submit photos on a weekly theme. A winner is picked (though there’s no real prize), but the main thing is to get you thinking outside the box and to try new photographic techniques or subjects that you may not normally shoot. This past week’s theme was ‘Creepy.’
I thought about it for a while, and what popped into my head was that evil children is about as creepy as it gets, so I asked my (normally quite lovely) daughter to help with this assignment. She gleefully agreed. I put my flashgun on the floor, aimed up (and fitted with a wireless flash trigger), and we sat in the hallway with the lights out.
At first I wanted her hair all messed up in front of her, with her reaching out, but that didn’t work. Then I tried for the ‘evil smile’ which just ended up in fits of giggles (she is 4, after all). Eventually I settled on, “Don’t make a face and just stare into the camera.” While this also resulted in giggles, I got a few frames that worked.
A quick high contrast conversion to black and white, and inversion of tones on her irises, and voila! My cute little girl transformed into a psychotic demon child. Best of all, we both had a great time!
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