Shadows and silhouettes

You don’t have to splash out on expensive Halloween costumes – a white bedsheet with a couple of handdrawn eyes can give you that timeless, aesthetically pleasing Scooby-Doo look. It can also double up as a canvas for creepy silhouettes. Backlit by either the sun or a flash, the human form can take on a myriad of different forms – especially if you distort the sheet. Alternatively, shoot on the same side as the subject, and capture shadow forms instead.

Check the exposure whenever you shoot a bright white object such as a sheet, as the camera will probably try to underexposure it. Be prepared to increase the exposure so that the histogram is closer to the right side of the graph.

Loving the alien A boy, pressing his head against a backlit sheet pegged to a washing line, takes on the shape of an alien.