Sat Nov 01, 2014 8:56 pm
#90486
Ok, so, remember last year when I said things had gotten away from me & I was way behind?
This year was WAY worse. Brother in law dragging me out to fish (gosh darn!) coaching daughters fall softball team (to a perfect 8-0 record no less); a haunted hallway competition at work where, for some reason, my team members all looked at me and said "well?!?" and on top of that, I lost a week over (Canadian) Thanksgiving down with Strep Throat. Shoot.
Needless to say, we pulled something off. Thank goodness the 11 year old continues to get better and more keen to carve. The challenge for you guys, try to figure out which ones were hers. If I didn't know, Im not sure I could tell. Yes, proud dad.
Anyway...
Short tease on what our display looked like in action:
http://youtu.be/xgrVNIjBgg4
And, because I was in too much of a rush to take pictures as we carved and, was too tired last night to shoot them, pictures of some well worn pumpkins from this afternoon. Some haven't fared well (some have fared remarkably well) - I have to use incandescent lights for the controller for the light show & with two+ strings in each, they get VERY warm by the end of the night.
This one didn't survive very well at all... too bad really, I was quite proud of this one & thought it looked very good.
This one was stubborn to photograph. Just couldn't get sharp focus. No idea why.
As soon as we saw this one, we knew it was going to be a "must do"
We actually watched the show (end to end) this past year. Like the blue tinge? I thought it was quite appropriate
Serves me right for playing with lighting at the END of shooting instead of the beginning...
I experimented with a strobe in behind. Fail. I also experimented with my flash off- camera inside a kin. Know what that looks like? Exactly as if I had a string of lights in it. so much for hoping for an amazing effect.
How'd I do that? You can just sort of see the ball head from my tripod in the foreground. The backdrop is a roll of silver transfer media I rescued from a scrap bin at work. I didn't discover it was translucent until half way through shooting these. Good news, I have another couple hundred feet. IN this shot, I used a red flood light in behind the backdrop.
Behind the scenes in the garage on the night of. Two laptops to run the show - one doing the hallowindows projection, the other is running the light-o-rama controller (not in the picture, it's on the ground right behind the screen (so the cords to each pumpkin's lights are as short as possible allowing me to use cheaper/fewer extension cords) ) / audio. We usually have the projection on the second floor, so need two laptops. I tried running both from one with suboptimal results. I'll bet most people walking by our display have no concept about the hardware required to do it.
Although, some parts were very simple. I built a 1 inch by 2 inch cedar frame inside my garage door frame and stapled a nearly translucent painters drop cloth to that and projected onto it. Worked very well. It also provided the highlight of the night for me. Late in the evening, my goofy daughter was dancing inside the garage amazed at her own shadow being cast on the screen. I growled and tore through the screen from the outside where she had no idea I was lurking. The poor girl just about imploded. So did my wife, who didn't realize that my projection screen was intended to be disposable. You know its funny when your neighbour just about pees herself.
Phew.
This year was WAY worse. Brother in law dragging me out to fish (gosh darn!) coaching daughters fall softball team (to a perfect 8-0 record no less); a haunted hallway competition at work where, for some reason, my team members all looked at me and said "well?!?" and on top of that, I lost a week over (Canadian) Thanksgiving down with Strep Throat. Shoot.
Needless to say, we pulled something off. Thank goodness the 11 year old continues to get better and more keen to carve. The challenge for you guys, try to figure out which ones were hers. If I didn't know, Im not sure I could tell. Yes, proud dad.
Anyway...
Short tease on what our display looked like in action:
http://youtu.be/xgrVNIjBgg4
And, because I was in too much of a rush to take pictures as we carved and, was too tired last night to shoot them, pictures of some well worn pumpkins from this afternoon. Some haven't fared well (some have fared remarkably well) - I have to use incandescent lights for the controller for the light show & with two+ strings in each, they get VERY warm by the end of the night.
This one didn't survive very well at all... too bad really, I was quite proud of this one & thought it looked very good.
This one was stubborn to photograph. Just couldn't get sharp focus. No idea why.
As soon as we saw this one, we knew it was going to be a "must do"
We actually watched the show (end to end) this past year. Like the blue tinge? I thought it was quite appropriate
Serves me right for playing with lighting at the END of shooting instead of the beginning...
I experimented with a strobe in behind. Fail. I also experimented with my flash off- camera inside a kin. Know what that looks like? Exactly as if I had a string of lights in it. so much for hoping for an amazing effect.
How'd I do that? You can just sort of see the ball head from my tripod in the foreground. The backdrop is a roll of silver transfer media I rescued from a scrap bin at work. I didn't discover it was translucent until half way through shooting these. Good news, I have another couple hundred feet. IN this shot, I used a red flood light in behind the backdrop.
Behind the scenes in the garage on the night of. Two laptops to run the show - one doing the hallowindows projection, the other is running the light-o-rama controller (not in the picture, it's on the ground right behind the screen (so the cords to each pumpkin's lights are as short as possible allowing me to use cheaper/fewer extension cords) ) / audio. We usually have the projection on the second floor, so need two laptops. I tried running both from one with suboptimal results. I'll bet most people walking by our display have no concept about the hardware required to do it.
Although, some parts were very simple. I built a 1 inch by 2 inch cedar frame inside my garage door frame and stapled a nearly translucent painters drop cloth to that and projected onto it. Worked very well. It also provided the highlight of the night for me. Late in the evening, my goofy daughter was dancing inside the garage amazed at her own shadow being cast on the screen. I growled and tore through the screen from the outside where she had no idea I was lurking. The poor girl just about imploded. So did my wife, who didn't realize that my projection screen was intended to be disposable. You know its funny when your neighbour just about pees herself.
Phew.
Just because I cannot see it, doesn't mean I can't believe it!
